How To Rock Out With Your Mom

As 2017 comes to an end, I think it’s safe for me to post about the “concert adventures” that I got to have this year.  All of which were with my mother.  Many people probably wouldn’t consider attending a concert an “adventure,” but they’ve probably never done a concert the way my mom does concerts!

So I’m dedicating this “How To” list to my Mother, a woman who is proof that one can “Rock Out” at any age!

How to Rock Out with your Mother:

Don’t assume that she won’t like your music.  Thanks to my mother, this year has been the “Year of Concerts!”  My mom has always loved her music.  I grew up listening to the music that she grew up with.  Of course, as I got older, I started listening to my own kind of music.  A lot of alternative rock, hard rock, and rap (of course, lol).  She never really seemed to take an interest.  Then everything changed.  One day she asked me if I knew who Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters was.  “Uhhhhh yea….why?”  Well she saw him sing on a show or heard a song or something, I can’t remember exactly, and she loved him!!  I told her that I had started listening to the Foo Fighters probably 15 years ago!!  And it was on from there.  From then on she was always “rocking out” to some band that I had been listening to for years!  She’d gone to some concerts with some other friends of hers, but in 2017 I started getting the invites that I had been waiting for:  We’ve attended Alter Bridge in Chicago (in January), Metallica at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and Guns ‘n Roses at The Dome (Not sure what it’s name is right now.  It always seems to be changing!) in St. Louis!

Be prepared to be “schooled.”  I want to make something clear.  My mom is not just a casual listener of some of these bands that I am about to tell you about.  When she gets stuck on a band, she has to know everything about them!  Their history, all the members and their personal stories, the stories and meanings behind the music…the guitars that they play for every song!!!  And there’s usually one member of the band, normally the lead guitarist, that she will take a particular liking too.  So when we go to these concerts, it always comes with a history lesson and all the facts about the band that she has gleaned from her endless hours of research.  Some of those hours of research, include watching recorded concerts from other venues on the tour.  She knows the set order, where the artists will tend to stand, etc…  As I said, prepared to be schooled!

Don’t forget to eat.  Of course, remember always to eat before some of these concerts!  So around brunch time, on the way to Chicago to see Alter Bridge, I used my handy dandy TV Food Maps App and found a food joint that had been featured on “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives:”  Charlie Parker’s Diner in Springfield, IL.  Charlie Parker’s is known for serving “Horseshoes.”  Basically a “shoe” is your choice of bread and meat with cheese, french fries, or tater tots piled on top.  You could also add other ingredients like chili to the dish.  One can get the full size “shoe” or get a smaller “pony.”  Even though I tend to buy the “Famous” dishes when I try out these new places, this time I optioned for something different.  I went with the bacon pancake and the pumpkin bread french toast.  And boy was I shocked when the waitress walked out with the largest pancake I’ve ever been served!  It literally was the size of the plate!  Of course it was delicious, but the pumpkin bread french toast was to die for!!  I would highly recommend them!  However, the biggest shock was the restaurant itself!  When we pulled up to it, I was thinking “no way this is it!”  We literally pulled up to a mini airplane hanger!  A metal building that was shaped like a “meatloaf” as had been quoted by someone else.  It definitely didn’t look like your typical eating establishment.  But it was well worth the stop!  After eating, we headed up the road to Chicago.

Bacon Pancake and Pumpkin Bread French Toast

I’ve actually never been in Chicago and I quickly fell in love with the city.  I thought it was beautiful.  The concert hall was right in the middle of downtown, so I enjoyed driving along the waterfront road, seeing the sights.  We found The Riviera Theater in North Chicago quite easily.  We found parking even easier!  So that meant we had several hours to spare before they even opened the doors.  Which meant I wanted to explore….and eat!!  The el train in Chicago ran right along the road by the theater.  And there was a stop across the street.  Once again I found a restaurant that had been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives a few stops down, DMK Burger Bar.  According to Google, it was just about 10 minutes away via public transit.  Seemed easy enough to me.  However, my mom wasn’t so certain.  As you will figure out, my mom believes in being punctual…like first in the venue punctual, so you could see her angst towards my idea.  But, she went ahead and went along with it!!  So on the El we hopped!!

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  Riding the El Train in Chicago

  

After a few “train hops” and getting some help from a police officer, we landed across the street from DMK Burger Bar!  We all ordered a burger (all their meat is grass-fed by the way), and in true Lagom fashion, we shared bites.  I ordered the 6, a burger topped with chorizo, guacamole, sonoma jack cheese, and chipotle aioli…  some of my favorite Mexican ingredients and it was delicious!  Lindsey went full on Paleo with the 13.  A burger with marinated portobello ‘buns,’ arugula, and pistou.  The 13 was different from any burger I’d ever had before, but it was definitely good.  However, my mom picked the winner of the evening!  The 5!!  Instead of beef, it featured grass-fed bison, fresh goat cheese, pickled red onion, and blueberry BBQ sauce!!  Delicious!!  It was so good that I’ve tried recreating it at home by making my own!  It wasn’t as good though.

After dinner we hopped back on the train and headed back to the concert hall with plenty of time before concert time!  For the Metallica concert, it was about appeasing the “boys,” so Hooters won!!  Enrique was a happy man with his 9-1-1 Wings!  And for the Guns ‘n Roses concert, I was traveling from Cape Girardeau, so I just met my mom halfway to St. Louis and she had fast food waiting for me!!

Always get the best seats in the house.  So I’ve been to several concerts before, but I normally found myself in the cheap seats at the top of the stadium.  And if I was “on the floor” I was pushed way back to the back.  When in the cheap seats, it’s hard to feel like you’re really at a concert.  You have to watch from the big screen, the music doesn’t “hit” you like it should, there’s no room to dance, and most of the people in your section are all just sitting there listening.  So God forbid you stand up and dance a little!!  But when you go to a concert with your Mother, at least mine, you get the BEST seats in the house!!  So what are the best seats in the house?  Right up front….PIT TICKETS!!  You’ve got to be in the middle of the action, close enough that you can see the sweat dripping off the artist’s faces!!  In the middle of the crowd, dancing, moshing…crowd surfing (we didn’t do that, and be prepared for a headache if you find yourself relying on my mother to help you along!)  Yes, the tickets are more expensive but it’s worth it for the experience!  Despite all the benefits of having pit tickets, you do have to work really hard for them!  Because you aren’t actually assigned a seat on your ticket, you have to get there early and expect to fight the crowd to get as close as you can to the front.  And if you’re lucky enough to get your desired location, you have to fight off the others who are trying to push their way to the front.  It really just adds to the “adventure” and it is quite an adrenaline rush.  For all 3 of these concerts we had to arrive early and wait in line after line and as soon as they opened the pit gates, it was a mad rush to a desired spot.  For my Mom it was always “Stage Right” as close to the front as we could get!

It wasn’t too hard to get close to Alter Bridge since it was such a small concert venue.  Metallica was a little more difficult.  It was at Busch Stadium in St. Louis and we waited in line for hours!!  And then when they let us in the Stadium, we waited in line at least another hour before they let us on the field.  And we found ourselves on the LEFT side of the stage, opposite of where my mom wanted to be.  So when they let us onto the field, Lindsey, Enrique, and I just sprinted down the stairs, across the field (which had been covered in a hard plastic, made slick from all the rain) to the opposite side of the stage.  Needless to say my mom was very pleased with our location. https://lagomadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/img_4977-1.movFor the Guns ‘n Roses concert at The Dome in St. Louis (a football stadium), my mom was disappointed because they actually assigned “Stage Left” and “Stage Right” to the pit tickets and my mom wanted to be on the same side as Slash…stage right.  So Lindsey and I were bound and determined that when they opened the gate, we would get as close to Stage Right or the front of the stage as we could for our mom.  So once again, when they let us on the field, we ran as hard as we could, the length of the football field, to another line to get in our pit.  When we got into our pit, we were right up front…on stage left.  Not to be deterred, my mom ventured over towards the right side of the stage to discover that there was no barriers keeping us from slipping over that way!  So off we went….stage right only about 4 people away from the front!  Perfect Slash viewing was upon us!

Wear the matching t-shirts.  If your mom buys the whole family matching Metallica shirts to wear to the Metallica concert…you wear the shirts!!  Enough said.

Drive all night if you have to.  For 2 of the 3 concerts I had to pull some all nighters to get to or from the concert venue.  When we went to Chicago for Alter Bridge, we left mid morning, had our day in the city and got in a great concert, but drove all night back to Missouri so that we could go to work the next morning.  It had been a long 24 hours, but well worth it!  For Guns ‘n Roses I had to drive to the city by myself because I had work meetings in Cape Girardeau fro two days.  When the concert was over I had to drive back to the hotel in Cape, waking my roommate up in the wee hours of morning to let me in!  Once again…soooo worth it!

Stand in the rain for hours.  If there’s ever a drought, just send us to a concert!  It rained to and from Chicago, but luckily we never had to stand in it!  However we weren’t so lucky when we went to Metallica.  As I already stated, you have to work for the best spots in the pit, so that involves getting to the concert venues very early to secure your spot in line.  So several hours before the Metallica concert, we were outside of Busch Stadium waiting to get in.  And then it happened, with a few rolls of thunder and some cracks of lightening overhead, the skies opened up and it started pouring on us!!  We couldn’t leave for shelter because our mom’s happiness at stage right was on the line!  We stood outside for several hours, wondering if they concert was even going to happen since Busch Stadium was an outdoor venue.  Finally, the let us in the stadium…to stand and wait some more, but not in the rain.  Then, they finally let us on the field…to stand in the rain some more!!  We were still nervous the concert wouldn’t happen, but a few sprinkles didn’t stop the bands!  They started playing right on time and played all night!!  We quickly forgot how wet we all were and just enjoyed the concert.  By the time we got to the Guns ‘n Roses concert, it did not shock me at all that it would rain on us while we were waiting outside of the Dome to get in.  Once again we were wet, but it didn’t matter once the concert started.

Bodyguard.  Yes, bodyguard.  As mentioned above there’s a lot of pushing around when trying to jockey for the best position around the stage while in the pits.  Once you’ve gotten your spot, you have to protect it.  There will be people constantly pushing behind you trying to weasel their way to the front and push you towards the back.  Using a popular saying, we had to “build a wall” to prevent people from breaking through and getting to the front.  Let me just say, we make a pretty strong wall.  Very few people get through us!  Also, we found ourselves acting as a “bodyguard” for our mom.  While she was engulfed in the music, dancing and singing her little heart out, we basically stood behind, keeping all the mosh pitters and crowd surfers off our mother.  I think she may have been pretty oblivious to everything going on besides what was happening on stage.

Fight off others for her for the souvenirs pitched into the crowd.  When you get close enough in the pits, you are a prime target to have a chance to get some of the prized souvenirs that are thrown into the crowd by the bands like guitar picks and drumsticks.  I literally found myself rolling around on the ground battling some other chick to secure one of these prized items.  Some woman had put her foot on a Metallica guitar pick just as I was reaching for it, trapping my hand under her boot!!  I didn’t give up though!  I just kept digging under there until I won the battle!  She was yelling and cussing at me in some foreign language, stomping my hand, as I kept pushing her off of it.  In the end, I walked away with a special guitar pick that said Metallica at Busch Stadium on it!  I didn’t give it to my mom then, but she will be getting it for Christmas!  So if you’re reading this Mom, Merry Christmas!!

Cherish every moment!  The most important thing of all that came from our concert adventures, was a chance to make memories with my mom that we will always cherish.  No, it is not your typical mother/daughter kind of experience, but that’s what makes it extra special.  How many women of my age can say they went with their 60ish year old mother to a real rock concert, stood in the pits, and rocked out all night long with the most diehard of fans!!    We came, we saw, we conquered!!

A Few Words of Caution:  The pit is not somewhere I would feel comfortable taking my children.  As fun and exhilarating as it is to be so close to the bands in the concert, it can be dangerous.  Along with the pushing and shoving going on, there were the occasional fights that broke out, and you also have to deal with people who may have had too much to drink, and unfortunately, some others using illegal drugs.  We just tried to look past those things, but that’s not something I would care to expose my younger children to.  Maybe not even when they are in high school.  This is an “Adults Only” kind of adventure.

Also, when choosing your footwear, always remember comfort before style!  If you do concerts the way we do concerts, you can expect to be on your feet for 12 hours or more straight!  So one should expect your feet to be aching very badly by the end of the night.  Especially, if you’re wearing heels!!

Oh, and apparently there’s some etiquette that should be followed.  If you’re going to tape of take pictures, try not to block the people behind you too much.  Some guy hit me on the back of my head at the Alter Bridge concert in Chicago because my phone was in the way!!!  Ugh!!  Needless to say he got quite an earful from me and several men jumped to my defense!

And if you’re short…I’m sorry…

As this year comes to a close, I’m anxious to see what other adventures my mother and I will share.  I hope there is a concert or to involved!  I’ve actually challenged her to an Eminem concert in Chicago in September!  

Highlight videos of some of my favorite songs will be below…as soon as I can get these things to start loading!!!!  Geez!!