The Killers and the Big Gong

***Update*** Yes, thanks Sparky, I forgot to mention best song! The classics were great, in fact the whole thing was great, but I loved Read My Mind, which he did not once, but twice, in the first set and again after the encore. They fooled the crowd into believing the concert was over, they jumped back on the stage after the encore and half the crowd who was halfway out the door all rushed back in to hear them. It rocked.


I love concerts. Last night we missed the inevitable fall of Sanjaya to see The Killers in concert and they rocked big-time. They played at USF where my husband and I both graduated from and some no-named band opened up for them. We went with a couple we knew back in college who also graduated from there and it was a real grown-up going out night with the kids at home with the Grandmas and the possibility of being out until the wee hours of midnight. Whoo-ee!! So we were trying to figure out where to go for dinner and we were naming off all our old haunts that were all now closed. I guess ten years would do that. Sniff. So we ended up at the old standby, Beef O'Brady's where everyone got to have beer but me. I tried to smell it to make me feel better, but that was just gross. Then as we were driving to the concert on campus, we passed all of the streets flanked with apartment complexes that everyone knew someone in back in "the day" and we remembered all the parties at every one of them and the strong possibility that there was a drunken night that spilled out into at least one of those parking lots, maybe even a drunken Irish jig that you could see from a balcony, and we all had a long conversation about how much we wish our children will grow up to be better than all of us. I remember us having a wipey board on the outside of our dorm room door listing who was having a party, when, and at which apartment complex. And we would line up our evening accordingly. Yes, my parents must be proud. Yet, as we're standing there all married with kids (and one on the way) and old, with our gray poking through, there is always some bit of longing at a concert at a college to be "one of them" again. The air was filled with giggling and mindless clacking by gaggles of skinny girls wearing precariously placed tube tops waiting in huge bathroom lines, only to like, take forever, because they like, totally have to pee, and return to the group of frat guys waiting outside for them holding their beers. Oh the memories. I do cringe thinking that I may have been one of them in a time where everything was just so important. But really what was important was that you got home before 4am to get in a good, solid, 3 hours sleep so you can get up at 7 to bang out that paper that's due for your 9:30 class. I was really proud of my ability to multitask. It made me what I am today.

Anyway, back to the actual concert. Boy do The Killers totally rock! I felt bad that I love them yet I only just downloaded their CD to my IPod last week. They had a huge gong on stage that I was excited about and I waited all night to see someone bang the crap out of it and they never did. What a tease! I'm now starting to make a tally on how many concerts I've seen pregnant. With Poops, it was U2, Billy Joel, and Cold Play, unless seeing Jerry Seinfeld do standup counts too, and that would be four. This time around, only The Killers, but it's still early. It's funny to have that big belly out at a concert. For some reason I feel so out of place, like I should be at home knitting some booties instead of rocking out at a concert. The crowds make me a little nervous because not everyone is looking for your big belly which seems so vulnerable and I have inner panic about guarding it. But what I love most about being out at a concert is how freeing it is. It makes me remember that I'm not just a mom, but I'm also still a pretty cool chick who still loves to completely rock out. And believe me, that's easy to forget with all of the birthday parties and trips to Gymboree and chats about poopy diapers.