11.22.2008

For those about to rock

Mr S's birthday present was AC/Dc tickets, sold out at the Schott. When he received them, he was speechless, so I knew I picked the right show. We got to the show, grabbed a beer and took our seats, which were dead-center and perfect. The opening act, the Answer, from Belfast, Northern Ireland don't ya know, was good, although they had yet to adjust their show to such a large venue and used only about half the stage. The first thing that came to both our minds was: how did lead singers behave before Chris Robinson? Seriously. The music was good, loud and loud. A fundamental property was the vocals often blended indistinguishably form the guitar. I love when the vocals and lyrics are basically another instrument. The band was very personable and I really liked their nod to the OSU/Buckeye game. They went with simple: "We hear that you are big football fans. (cheer) By default, you like beer. (cheer) So I think we'll get along just fine (roar)". Contrast that with Bob Schneider's awkward salute a few years back, which went on for like 5 minutes and he didn't do a single thing that showed he knew what the hell he was talking about. While I understand you want to connect with your crowd, with Buckeyes you have 2 choices: polite nod to the crazy people or throw an "OH" and bust into Hang on Sloopy. Anything in the middle just annoys. Ferinstance, Barenaked Ladies came to town a while back and they always do something local, but well-researched. Theirs was an inspired tribute to Tim Horton's. Neck up or full monty, I say.

AC/DC started with a locomotive and fellatio-themed video thing. It was good for the effects, but as a woman, left a little to be desired. After that, the show was exactly as expected: Loud and full of standards. A generally good time. Unfortunately, I am too observant for my own good. Mr S was having the time of his life. He was dancing a lot. To his own drummer. Think Elaine from Seinfeld. It is one thing to dance like nobody is looking, but another to do it when with 20K of your closest friends. I was so happy to see he was having a great time. Until I looked  across the aisle and saw the teenagers laughing at him. 10 minutes later, I sat down for a moment and realized they were actually imitating him. He was their show. It went on for a song or two. I made eye contact with the little assholes and gave hem the best ojo I could muster. Knowing that my prime directive was to make sure Husband had a good time, I couldn't go over and dress them down appropriately. So I fumed in silence and did my best to ignore. I am really bad at ignoring. Next time looked, it appeared that someone made them aware they were being cruel, because they had stopped. I did not have an opportunity to slice their throats. The rest of the show passed according to plan (unless you take exception to Angus Young performing a striptease). The ears are still a'ringing.