Wooooo! Woooooo!

Gary and I went to the Bruce Hornsby concert tonight. I see why Becs is so mad about him! He was very personable, and on top of that he and every musician in his band dazzled.

And Gary was damn lucky to be there, since I had initially planned to go with Anne from work, but Anne got a concussion a few nights ago and then promptly went to sleep. She lived, but wasn’t up for a concert yet. The old concussion excuse. I hadn’t even considered inviting Gary, but he was happy enough to step in. And then come to find out he loved it.

Sure, I was a little put off when he sat down at the piano for the first song and SANG ALMOST NO WORDS. When it was done, I leaned over to pout to Gary that “There are no words,” but he was clapping high over his head and screaming “Woooo!” After a song or two I didn’t even notice the lyrics because even I realized the music was amazing. I am going to claim that what I meant was,”There are no words to express how good this is.” Unless “Woooo!” counts as a word.

I recognized three songs that I had always credited to Bruce Springsteen. The drummer spun his sticks with every beat. The piano seemed to have little conversations with the other instruments. Gary kept his arm around me almost the whole time. We had three conversations: with the pigtailed girl next to me (we clucked in disgust at the people behind us who were talking), with the woman in front of us who spilled her beer (Gary offered to take the rap), and the best one, the conversation with the woman next to Gary.

“I smell smoke,” I complained. “They told us when we came in this was a non-smoking show.”

Gary said, with authority, “No, it’s smoke from the balcony. There’s smoking upstairs and it’s just drifting down here.”

I really thought he was just pulling that out of his ass. “Gary, I think you’re wrong.”

“No! That’s always been the policy here at the Pageant. Every time we’ve been here.”

This was going nowhere. “Whatever.”

The woman next to Gary leaned over and said to me, “You know, I thought I heard them say when we came in this was a non-smoking show.”

“Thank you!” I said.

Gary disagreed. “They’ve always had a smoking area in the balcony.” Gary doesn’t smoke, but he was pretty devoted to this policy he’d made up.

Lady would stand for none of Gary’s bullshit. “I know they said it was non-smoking.”

“Thank you!” I said again to my new best friend forever.

Gary backed down. “Well, I don’t know, I didn’t hear anything.”

Bruce said he’d come back to the Pageant. I’ll have to see him again. His followers are good people.