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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
Concert experience had its ups and downs
By Jane Howard Lee
Contributor Published August 6, 2009 My good friend Betsy and I went to The Woodlands Sunday to see a show with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp.
Betsy is a huge fan of both Dylan and Willie. She’s been to a lot of their shows, even in recent years.
Betsy goes to a lot of concerts. She has a usual escort, but he has a problem with the heat and had to leave a show at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands early recently when the heat made him sick. The Pavilion is, for those who don’t know, an outdoor arena. Seeing a show there in August is not for the faint of heart.
Anyway, Betsy was resigned to missingt a chance to see Dylan and Willie? But she and I talked and then I talked with my husband who had to work on Sunday and he said “you two should go,” so we did.
Betsy’s usual escort was so relieved that she would get to go to the show without him that he jumped on his computer and, in a very nice gesture, bought our tickets.
So we went.
We had some nice reserved seats and it would have been great except for a silly woman a couple rows in front of us who jumped to her feet at the first note of the first song and stayed there, blocking our view of much of the stage. This middle-aged woman stayed up and danced and punched at the air with her fists and gyrated and wiggled and since she was pretty much all we could see if we looked towards the stage, it appeared that her backside would be all the show we would get to see.
Not at all what we had in mind.
She blocked our view for most of Willie’s performance, then apparently decided that the empty seat four spots down from hers was better so she moved down there and blocked some other folks’ view for a while.
Those folks got pretty upset and finally one of them went and got a security person who moved the dancing woman back to her original seat.
The way it works is that you can sit or stand or do whatever you want within reason as long as you stay in your ticketed space. So dancing woman was back to block our view once again.
The dancing woman at Sunday’s show wasn’t even looking at the stage while she danced so she could easily have done her dancing someplace where she wouldn’t have blocked anyone else from seeing the performers.
Poor Betsy, who could probably be counted as among Dylan and Willie’s greatest fans, got angrier and angrier.
Finally, when Dylan was about halfway through with his part of the show (and he was the last to perform) Betsy had had enough.
She leaped to her feet, ran down to the dancing woman and yelled (she had to yell to be heard over the music) “why don’t you sit down so the people behind you can see at least some of this show! We are tired of looking at your backside!”
A college girl working security saw Betsy rush at the other woman and apparently thought there was about to be a girl fight and went to get other security people. By the time they got there Betsy was back in her seat and the dancing woman was sitting down, looking a bit shocked.
The leader of this bunch of security people was an older gentlemen who had been quite friendly to us when we first arrived. He’d complimented Betsy on her fancy cowboy boots and we talked about his kids and grandkids and then every time we went to and from the concession stands or the bathrooms we would stop to talk with him a bit.
So he motioned for Betsy to come out in the aisle and speak with him and she told him her side. Then he told her to sit again while he talked to the dancing woman.
When he came back and again motioned Betsy out to the aisle she thought she was about to get kicked out of the concert. But then the guy motioned for me to come too and I knew that something good was going to come out of it.
Sure enough, he led us forward to some much better seats where there was nobody to block of view of the stage.
I bet the dancing woman thought we were going to get kicked out and was livid when she saw where we ended up.
It was great.
So there’s a lesson here …
Whenever you go to a concert, make friendly with the security people working your area. It’s just a nice thing to do and who knows, it just might pay off if you end up in a sticky situation.
By the way, I didn’t even mention John Mellencamp’s performance and to me it was the best part of the show. He and his band really put on a great performance, not like an old timer still just making the rounds, not like a studio great who performs live because he has to, but like he and his band really loved being there and wanted to give the crowd the best that they had to give.
Of course, I couldn’t see him, but he was sure worth hearing.
Jane Howard Lee is a reporter for The Baytown Sun.
Contributor Published August 6, 2009 My good friend Betsy and I went to The Woodlands Sunday to see a show with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp.
Betsy is a huge fan of both Dylan and Willie. She’s been to a lot of their shows, even in recent years.
Betsy goes to a lot of concerts. She has a usual escort, but he has a problem with the heat and had to leave a show at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands early recently when the heat made him sick. The Pavilion is, for those who don’t know, an outdoor arena. Seeing a show there in August is not for the faint of heart.
Anyway, Betsy was resigned to missingt a chance to see Dylan and Willie? But she and I talked and then I talked with my husband who had to work on Sunday and he said “you two should go,” so we did.
Betsy’s usual escort was so relieved that she would get to go to the show without him that he jumped on his computer and, in a very nice gesture, bought our tickets.
So we went.
We had some nice reserved seats and it would have been great except for a silly woman a couple rows in front of us who jumped to her feet at the first note of the first song and stayed there, blocking our view of much of the stage. This middle-aged woman stayed up and danced and punched at the air with her fists and gyrated and wiggled and since she was pretty much all we could see if we looked towards the stage, it appeared that her backside would be all the show we would get to see.
Not at all what we had in mind.
She blocked our view for most of Willie’s performance, then apparently decided that the empty seat four spots down from hers was better so she moved down there and blocked some other folks’ view for a while.
Those folks got pretty upset and finally one of them went and got a security person who moved the dancing woman back to her original seat.
The way it works is that you can sit or stand or do whatever you want within reason as long as you stay in your ticketed space. So dancing woman was back to block our view once again.
The dancing woman at Sunday’s show wasn’t even looking at the stage while she danced so she could easily have done her dancing someplace where she wouldn’t have blocked anyone else from seeing the performers.
Poor Betsy, who could probably be counted as among Dylan and Willie’s greatest fans, got angrier and angrier.
Finally, when Dylan was about halfway through with his part of the show (and he was the last to perform) Betsy had had enough.
She leaped to her feet, ran down to the dancing woman and yelled (she had to yell to be heard over the music) “why don’t you sit down so the people behind you can see at least some of this show! We are tired of looking at your backside!”
A college girl working security saw Betsy rush at the other woman and apparently thought there was about to be a girl fight and went to get other security people. By the time they got there Betsy was back in her seat and the dancing woman was sitting down, looking a bit shocked.
The leader of this bunch of security people was an older gentlemen who had been quite friendly to us when we first arrived. He’d complimented Betsy on her fancy cowboy boots and we talked about his kids and grandkids and then every time we went to and from the concession stands or the bathrooms we would stop to talk with him a bit.
So he motioned for Betsy to come out in the aisle and speak with him and she told him her side. Then he told her to sit again while he talked to the dancing woman.
When he came back and again motioned Betsy out to the aisle she thought she was about to get kicked out of the concert. But then the guy motioned for me to come too and I knew that something good was going to come out of it.
Sure enough, he led us forward to some much better seats where there was nobody to block of view of the stage.
I bet the dancing woman thought we were going to get kicked out and was livid when she saw where we ended up.
It was great.
So there’s a lesson here …
Whenever you go to a concert, make friendly with the security people working your area. It’s just a nice thing to do and who knows, it just might pay off if you end up in a sticky situation.
By the way, I didn’t even mention John Mellencamp’s performance and to me it was the best part of the show. He and his band really put on a great performance, not like an old timer still just making the rounds, not like a studio great who performs live because he has to, but like he and his band really loved being there and wanted to give the crowd the best that they had to give.
Of course, I couldn’t see him, but he was sure worth hearing.
Jane Howard Lee is a reporter for The Baytown Sun.