More Shoreline Musings and Amusements

Concert:  Coldplay

Date:  Friday, August 19

My call time: 5 p.m.

Doors open:  6 p.m.

Departure time:  11:30 p.m.

My position:  lower concourse, checking tickets for the paid seats

It was Coldplay. Really, was there any fear? Nah.

This concert was sold out but pretty mellow. We had the token drunk yuppies, but most of them were friendly.  I was glad I didn’t have to pay money to hear the band because there wasn’t much difference from listening to them real loud on the radio at home.  They played their songs as is. But the crowd kept going wild and it would have been nice to be able to see them.  Chris Martin left the stage and headed either by the upper concourse or the lawn towards the end of the show. Good on him.

There was, of course, one really funny interaction.  A young woman and a man came fairly early to find their seats.  Problem was, she had a seat up front but he didn’t. She asked if he could PLEASE go with her; we had to say no. She said she had never been to a concert before without her dad and she was scared.  I said, “honey, it’s Coldplay. There’s NO reason to be afraid of anything.”  She argued, “But I’m sitting alone!” I explained how that was even better because she could dance, be stupid, do whatever she wanted with no one around who she knew to see her. There’s nothing better!  She went alone to find her seat and was gone about 20 minutes. Her man was looking a bit tense. She finally came back looking like a combination of excited and scared. “I’m like in the first row,” she exclaimed. “Right near a really big speaker. A woman told me it was gonna be really loud!”

She came in and out only once or twice. I encouraged her each time and told her just to relax and enjoy herself.  When the show ended, her man came by to fetch her.  It seemed the crowd had thinned pretty well and again, her mate was looking nervous about the fact that she wasn’t out yet. As he was calling her cell phone, she appeared.  She walked right over to me, gave me a big hug and said, “Thank you! That was amazing!!”  And away they walked, hand in hand.