Don't Stand Where You Puke: Amy Goes to a Concert

I am no stranger to concerts. I’ve been to hundreds of concerts since my first concert when I was 14 (Lollapalooza 1995). During one summer I went to a total of 32 concerts. I love everything about concerts. First, you can’t beat live music – there is nothing like it. The music flows through your body and makes your soul shake (okay, it might be the baselines, but whatever). The people watching is top notch. And they are just fun! I once went to see Rusted Root – back in my hippy days. My friends and I did a a little tailgating in the parking lot for a few hours before the show and we were nice and toasted when the concert finally started.

If you have never heard Rusted Root – go check them out now. Lots of unique instruments, hand drums, guitars, flowy skirts and people dancing around as if it were the 60s. Hippy music. So there we were: a big group of us dancing around the main walkway at our local outdoor music venue without a care in the world and then it hit me. The booze hit me… hard. I learned up against a wall and put my head down towards my knees. One of my friends came to me and asked if I was okay. No, I was not okay. She asked if I needed to throw up. And just like that scene in the movie Parenthood I said yes, turned my head a bit and puked. Right next to where I stood. “Not right here,” my friend said, “I meant in the bathroom!” Oh, whoops. “Okay, well, let’s move so we aren’t standing right in it.” So we moved about 2 feet to the right. It wasn’t long before someone came and stood next to us and I politely tapped the young hippy man without a shirt on and said, “You don’t want to stand there. Some guy over there just puked where you’re standing.”

Yes, concerts are fun. And the week before I ended up in the hospital I got to see the soulful Ray LaMontagne and about a month after my surgery I was supposed to see Coldplay. I am not a huge fan of Coldplay, but they are good and I have never seen them before so I was really looking forward to show. And I was confident that a month after the surgery I would okay to go. I asked my doctors to be sure and they gave me the go ahead.

So on June 2, 2009 I got to see Coldplay at that same outdoor music venue I had puked in 10 years prior. But this time, I had feeling, was going to be a bit… different. I had lawn tickets, which meant I was going to have to sit on an incline on the ground. This was not going to fly, so I called the venue and inquired about “disabled seating.” I may or may not have said something along the lines of “My daughter had back surgery and I am still deciding if she can go, what can you do for her?” when I called, but whatever. They were very accommodating and I was able to park in VIP (fancy that!) and sit in a chair behind the regular reserved seating. At one point during the show, the band made their way to a mini stage 10 feet behind us to perform a few songs – so we had great seats!

Now, I have been to hundred of concerts, seen hundred of live shows but I have never had an experience quite like this one. I found myself suddenly nervous around the crowd of people. Scared I was going to lose my friend in the sea of people and have to curl into a ball and rock myself into my happy place. And the music was loud. So loud in fact that I had to wear earplugs. And the stage lights were bright. So bright in fact that I had to wear my sunglasses. So there I was looking like a complete ass hole in my disabled seating wearing earplugs and sunglasses drinking my water and sitting for every other song. The only similarities between this show and the Rusted Root show from 10 years ago was that I felt like puking the entire time – but not because of booze, because of nerves and anxiety.

While I would never dream of getting to a concert late or leaving a concert early, we did both. While I would never even think twice about going to a concert, I was suddenly second guessing myself. Something so simple something I had done – and enjoyed – hundreds of times and I was suddenly that person everyone wonders why even bothered to show up.

But the concert was great – Coldplay was awesome and in the end I am glad I went. After all, I had been stuck in my house for weeks at this point. But mostly I am glad I didn’t puke where I stood or feel the need to blame it on someone else.