A couple of months ago I heard that Snow Patrol were coming to Minneapolis, and I was very excited! Unfortunately the venue they were playing at had no chairs. I didn't know there was a chair shortage here, but we decided that since we're old now, and one of us has an extra human inside her, we'd need chairs! (Proof of oldness #1) Luckily that place closed down (probably because no one went there due to the lack of chairs) and we got tickets for the new venue that had numbers on them that told you where your seat was!
Thursday was the big night! I dropped Fiona off at Aunty Cathy's and then Ben and I went downtown to have dinner beforehand. After polishing off the word's largest portion of Nachos (looked something like this, but larger) and a bowl of mac and cheese, we were ready to waddle over.
The opening band was the Plain White T's, who I thought I might have heard of, probably because Ali likes them, but could definitely not name anything they sang (proof of oldness #2). But it turns out that they sing that "Hey there Delilah" song! Who'd have guessed? Not me! Because I'm old.
Snow Patrol started and immediately every single person in the section in front of us stood up, and remained standing for the first 2 songs. After I hefted myself into a standing position I spotted a section a little further over where everyone was still sitting, with 2 or 3 rows still empty. We were in the balcony, so there was no one in front of them blocking the view either. We moved over there, and sat down, and it was much better! (Proof of oldness #3).
Quite soon after we sat down, we noticed some interesting characters in the area around us... like 'kissy couple' in front of us. They seemed to be on date number 2, or maybe 3, and they spent the entire time kissing and fondling each other. Ben and I laughed to ourselves, smug in the knowledge that they'll only like each other that much for a very short time, and soon she'll be nagging him about his dirty socks (proof of oldness #4). Across the aisle was 'drunken middle aged man' who spent the first part of the show trying (and repeatedly failing) to dial a number on his phone and the remainder dancing in a wild, flailing, but completely heartfelt way. Proof of oldness # 5: I was so glad I wasn't going to wake up with his headache the next day!
The band were great! They were having some technical problems and the lead singer (Gary)'sguitar only worked about half of the time causing them to completely rearrange the set list to do the songs where he doesn't play the guitar during guitar down times. He seemed a little shaken by the problems and later admitted (after a very long musical introduction and a brief conference with the guitarist) that he'd completely forgotten how to sing/play "Open your Eyes" and after the show he was going to be "taken to an old folks home to be fed mushy food through a straw to match his mushy brain". Despite the hiccups we really enjoyed the show, and I think it was a more personal experience for the audience because the band had to make things up as they went along!
I forgot to bring my camera, so in case you're not familiar with Snow Patrol, here's a video of one of my favourite songs...
So we had a great time, despite the painful realisation that I'm an old, old lady. We spent the reat of the weekend reconvering from our exciting excursion, and now I suppose we're ready to have another Monday...
