We are not crazy, although on the surface it may SEEM like we are. But in our defense it sounded like a good idea at the time.
Beth got tickets for us to see Sugarland. WOO HOO!! When purchasing the tickets, I am quite sure visions of sunny skies and comfortable breezes filled her head. I know that's what I thought about when she told me about the concert.
The assembled revelers: Beth, Pete, Kari, Julie and me. Mayhem in a moment, at your service. But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. Or wice and women...I must tell you here and now that in the deepest portion of the cockles of my heart that I believe that rain is a wonderful thing...unless you are going to an outdoor concert. Then, without sufficient preparations, you are going to get wet.
With sufficient preparations you are going to get soaked.
Yes, you read that right.
Umbrellas, ponchos, and baseball caps for those who have already enjoyed outside events in the rain, and a folding seat that we each apparently brought for the sole purpose of sitting down in a puddle and then, when our hind ends were wet enough to look like we missed a bathroom somewhere along the way, folding the chair up and standing to sing and dance the night away.
These are all hallmarks of a great night. If you don't have anything with which you can threaten blackmail of your accomplices, you wasted your time. And what is more blackmailable than wet pants?
Sanity?
I hear you questioning it now. The truth is, you have to be a little insane to realize the value of going out in pneumonia provoking weather to see a concert anyway. But, when the concert is Sugarland...well...damn the storm clouds and torrential rain - FULL SPEED AHEAD! Admiral Farragut would have gone!
And don't the Redstone Arsenal Army types have just enough of that old 'going to hell in a handbasket' attitude to pull this off? Hooah!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU, MAGGOT!! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!! Kiss that mud!! HOOAH!!!! So, with that firmly in mind, we went!
Since Beth arrived early enough that she staked out and held our location against all invaders foreign and domestic in prime real estate in front of the stage, the rest of the 'wild bunch' could arrive a bit later.
But then the heavens opened and flooded my front yard and portions of the road. Phone calls from concerned participants came in...YES! We are still going. Yes we are on the way!! If we have to deploy the canoes from their berths in the trailer, we are going to this concert! I happen to have a very smooth J-stroke. If you don't canoe, I'll explain it to you later. If you do canoe, you should be impressed because I learned it in a girl's camp with a bunch of whiners around who didn't want to get wet and the water was only three feet deep! Trust me when I tell you that by the end of the night...the mud was deeper.
Pete called me earlier to tell us wild women that he would drive us all over and get us into one of the regular military gates instead of parking in the morass of people waiting to get into the civilian lineup at the designated entry point. Since he has a DOD sticker on his vehicle, he is a privileged character who used his privilege to benefit three crazy women from the great unwashed, militarily speaking. He earned his P.C. status the hard way - in service to our country with bullets flying. Tonight, the most we had to fear was flying beer flagons and fists.
On our way over, Beth called me on my cell phone to ask where we were. She asked ME that. Sure, go ahead and laugh now. Where are we...we're on the highway. So there, Beth. And you thought I didn't have any useful directional information while on the road.
We had to show our ID when we arrived at the gate to get into the installation minus any nasty bullet wounds for entering government property unannounced, namely our ugly driver's licenses, to get on base. I believe Kari won the ugly photo contest hands down. All license photos seem to be taken while you are talking, blinking or looking stupid, but once in a while you get lucky and get a decent photo. Julie got lucky on hers. My own looks like a prison photo.
Pete and I discussed the relative merits of telling the guard at gate 9 that we were ALL his wives and then accuse him of being an un-understanding Gentile if he thought that was odd. We had a nice joke about the relative merits of polygamy on our way in. It would have been funnier if we had been in Beth's truck since she has an LDS sticker on the back...and you know how them danged Mormons are about their multiple wives...
The walk up to the gates to 'heaven' was pretty quick since Pete parked the car in a spot just a few blocks from the designated ticket takers. I must confess that I was astonished to see so many people arriving without rain gear, and more than a few without adequate clothing.
I get cold when I am soaking wet. Perhaps it's a thyroid thing...but I digress.
So, as we are approaching the entry point to the concert, Beth calls Pete to tell him where she is and how we are to proceed to meet her.
Following her careful instructions, we find her 'encouragingly' removing a usurper from the 'marked blanket area'. This is sacred turf paid for and staked out by a woman who knows how to use weapons and can run fast enough and long enough to chaset away the average lardbutt who hopes to steal prime real estate from what they wrongly assume is a diminutive and possibly weak female.
Watch out, losers, this woman will feed you your entrails for breakfast and ask if you'd like another homemade muffin to go with them!
The crowd mills and surges in and around us and the rain falls. We discover that rain can fall in a 360 direction and soon we are all in various states of rising damp. I begin to appreciate the fact that I am NOT a pioneer in a covered wagon at this point.
Finally, the concert begins with an entre act I've never heard of who sings to us from his San Fransisco roots about all things country. I find that vastly amusing in an odd way.
"Just what part of the farm belt are you from, son?"
"'Frisco, Dad, 'Frisco".
But his music was good and a nice beginning.
Billy Currington came on next and sang a lot of songs I knew but didn't know that he was the one who sang them. I know songs, not necessarily artist. When the whoops and cheering for Billy died down, it became apparent that the rain was continuing on for a while yet, we settled into the routine of trying to keep dry in that relative way that you hope you can when you are standing fully clothed in a shower stall.
Delightfully ripped and muscular military personnel and security guards stood up front to encourage the malefactors of the world into a submissive position. They looked menacing. Which was, of course, the whole point. I don't think I want to tangle with even the woman on their detail. She looked like she could kick butts for breakfast without even breaking a sweat. I never saw her smile. I'm sure she was smiling on the inside. Or not.
The stagehands and crew set up for the main event while we stewed in our ponchos and beneath umbrellas that were alternately tipped or bumped sending a cascade of cool water over either my shoes or my legs. Fortunately for all concerned, I plan to count this as my bath for the week.
But when the first strains of Sugarland's music started up, the screaming and whooping began. And that was just me. I am reasonably sure that Julie went home partially deaf. Perhaps she will recover her hearing by Sunday. I know Beth was screaming because she was beside me and I think we both were giving the decibel meter a run for it's money.
The concert was amazing and eventually the rain slowed to a trickle. Jennifer Nettles is AMAZING and the musical skill of Kristian Bush on a variety of stringed instruments was absolutely ASTOUNDING to watch! It was just totally beyond comprehension that there we were just mere feet from the people who fill my living room with sound when I jack up the volume and sing along in my exercise clothes. They were both excited and energetic as they romped through their music. I sang along and the couple next to me, who seriously should have gotten a room, stared at me as if I was evil. Which of course I am, but they don't know me well enough to stare at me about it. The girl kept making nasty remarks about how I was singing along. Well, DUH!! They ASKED US TO, MISSY!!!
I think they were too busy liplocking and copping a feel to really pay attention to the instructions we were given about joining in anyway. Oooooh baby...kissy kissy.
Why go to the trouble of coming if you aren't going to listen?
So much happened that it would take weeks to combine our memories and recount them all! I remember at one point, I was singing along and looked to see all of our 'murderer's row' singing along. We knew it, but more importantly we FELT the music and the lyrics. It was a kind of bliss that can't be matched by anything else. Not even an entire sleeve of graham crackers - even if you are a cookie pig.
On the way out when it ended, as all concerts sadly do, the mud from both the rain and the churning thousands of feet that trampled it up into a fine quagmire threatened to steal shoes and sandals without discrimination. Since I wore both lawnmowing shoes and the seriously oldest pair of sox I own, I knew straight up that if either was a goner, it was no real loss.
It was everything you hope it will be when you say you are going to see Sugarland! So, sometime, if someone asks you to join them in an opportunity to see a concert outside - GO. If it rains, you'll get wet, but if you don't go, you will indeed regret it.
