(Not) Going to a ROCK SHOW

HAL, you’re not going to believe this one.

These pandemic days, anyone I follow on Social Media that’s a music fan is lamenting the sidelining of the ROCK SHOW. I sure am. On June 5th, pal Dave and I missed our first show of the pandammit when Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (and David Crosby) had to cancel at The Rooftop at Pier 17 in the Big Apple. Oh, and we also had sweet seats to see the Evil Empire at the Death Star in the Bronx Saturday afternoon! The show is now scheduled for the same week in 2021. Not sure if the MLB schedule will cooperate or even exist. Interestingly, Ticketmaster offered a refund or the 2021 show. No word from the Yanks on my $350 sitting in their savings account.

There are times that I simply must attend a live show for the bombardment of music I love. Not just the sound, but the physical pounding of amplified sound waves, the dazzling lights, the emotional contorted faces of performers and fans, the smell of stale beer, and the taste of bourbon. A live show penetrates my soul. It sucks to miss it. Somewhere in some thread, a post read, “whoever you last saw live in concert you have to spend the pandemic with.” I was happy to reply, “Jenny Lewis.” In fact, Ms. Lewis performed the last two shows I attended, and they were fantastic.

I’ve traveled to see some shows – mostly just drives. NYC, Northampton, MA, Portland, ME, and of course, Boston, an hour away. I did fly out to see Mr. Isbell and band at Red Rocks Amphitheater in 2017. That was an all-timer and I highly recommend seeing your favorite band there.  My college buddy, Phil has trekked the globe to see the Stones, and he’s flown here to see the Drive-By Truckers with yours truly. Except we didn’t see them. In February of 2017, Phil jetted in from San Jose so we could dine at Abe & Louie’s Thursday night, then see the Sharks play the Bruins, and finally the Truckers ROCK SHOW on Friday evening. The steaks and wine were top shelf, and Phil’s team lost, but mother nature dumped a good two feet of snow in Boston that night and the Truckers had to postpone to Sunday. Neither of us saw that show.

Back on January 10th this year, Phil contacted me again with news the DBT’s had an upcoming show. How did I miss that? Phil wanted to fly out again in an effort to finally see the band. I jumped on the website to look at tickets and unfortunately, the pickin’s were slim. I wrote back with a promise to find tickets, but it never came to fruition and unfortunately, we missed that show, too.

In March just before the pandemic really took hold, I bought a new laptop. It’s a sweet Lenovo Yoga that doubles as a tablet that I use while I’m ellipticaling. It’s pretty sweet. The first night I had it the excitement of a new toy gripped me. I sat on the couch, set up preferences, loaded up software, and then logged into Gmail. I thought it a good time to clean out the email box so I worked backwards from early March cleaning out a lot of the old stuff that had been lingering. Then I saw this one from Nov 21, 2019 at 10:04 AM from customerservice@ticketstoday.com:

I had purchased first-row tickets in the balcony in November and completely spaced it. Sorry, Phil.

This year sucks.