Best Day Ever #4

Hi friends,

I don’t have much creative, or thought provoking to write about today, but i did want to mention that I had one of those “best days ever” yesterday. I have maybe three days that I would call my best ever. One is the day back in college when I won the conference championship in the 200m with a time that was in the top 8 in the nation at the time. Another was that day on my honeymoon with my (then new) wife Jennifer as we walked around Victoria BC being in love. Another was about 5 years ago when we took my two kids to Disney on Ice. The looks on their faces and the smiles and cheers they let out will always be etched on my heart. Last night I have another day to add. Jennifer and I took my 10 year old son to his first concert - Switchfoot and Reliant K. Seeing my son jump and sing and cheer and bump his fist complete with white man’s overbite was in a word AWESOME!

Jackson is more of a Reliant K fan than a Switchfoot fan, and I am the opposite, but both shows were great and the opening band Ruth from Battle Ground, Wa (just a few miles up the road from where I live) was surprisingly good as well.

If you are not familiar with any of these bands, they are the bands that I call Christian friendly. They have quite a bit of airplay on commercial radio stations, but definitely have a christian/spiritual message to their music. As a result there were lots of Church buses parked in the parking lot when we arrived at the venue (Which was horrible- I’ll say more in a minute) and lots of church youth groups in attendance, which was not horrible. I’m 39 years old and my wife is 37 but we don’t normally hang out with people our age, typically our friends are about 10 years younger than us. But I am too old to be spending much time on the floor of a rock concert pogo-ing for three hours, so Jennifer and I and my 10 year old son stayed up in our seats. Anyway, the friends who we went with all headed down to the floor and we stayed in the stands to hold our spot with the chaperones and “adults” from the youth groups that had traveled to the show. The reliant K and Ruth concerts were fun and pretty non-threatening to the people sitting around us, but I have enough of a prophet in me, to absolutely love the facial expression change when Switchfoot took the stage. Their sound is much harder, their message is much more counter cultural and I relished in the fact that my son was pumping his fist in the air as they sang. The older folks around us were not quite “hip” with the lyrics to “My American Dream” or statements by Jon Foreman (lead singer) like “thrift stores redeem American commerce” or songs like “Dirty Second Hand”. I had dreams of my son pumping his fist being the revolutionary calling the church to account for its greed and support of things that grieve the heart of God. I know I am reading way too much into a ten year old’s first concert... but let me dream! Like I said it was a good night!

The only harsh on my awesome night was the venue of the concert! Wow the Pavilion at the Oregon State Fairgrounds sucks, at least for concerts. It's a big ol’ metal rodeo barn so the acoustics are terrible (although the bands did great with what they had to work with). The Concessions workers were terrible and acted like charging $3.50 for as cup of ice with 5 oz of soda in it was an inconvenience to them. Parking is horrific with one gate allowing all the cars in or out. We ended up parking outside on residential streets after spending 30 minutes waiting to move about 1/2 block in the car to get into the one gate. And security was the worst I have seen at a concert. The floor of the stadium was PACKED and all night long we saw young kids getting passed up to the front and escorted out by paramedics because they were being smashed in the crowd. I understand that those things happen and have been to several concerts where crowds get like, that but as soon as it happens security typically gets a hold of the crowd and starts working to get the situation under control. Not last night. For three hours there was a steady stream of kids being passed up and escorted/carried out by paramedics. Even my 10 year old said there is no way he wanted to go down there. If you are considering attending a concert at the Pavilion I would suggest you wait till the concert is at a better/safer venue.

So anyway I’m adding day # 4 to my best days ever list. Rock on friends, and fight the power.... :::pumping fist while i do the white man’s overbite::