Spring Has Sprung, Already

I dug out that damned fold up chair, dusted it off and then missed the show. I must be getting old or something because I looked out the window and thought, "Well, the weathers not great and I'm kind of tired and there's a new Law and Order on and..."

Henceforth, I promise not to miss a festival for the rest of the summer. Don't bother calling me about the next big one at the Palladium/Corel/Scotia/IBM/Yahoo Centre. I gave up shelling out hundreds of dollars to see overblown and arthritis ridden artists years ago. Cheap seats in the lower part of the atmosphere, $11 beer and traffic jams that take longer to clear than the concerts last have robbed me of any desire to see them. If I can sit on the grass with two hundred friends and walk home, I'll be there. Except for this past weekend. I apologize for that. Law and Order was good, though.

I made a terrible mistake a couple of summers ago when I accepted some Gold Circle passes from a friend. I sat in the V.I.P. section, ten feet from our own personal porta-potty drinking beer out of a glass and mooned over the fence at everyone in the field having so much more fun than I was having. I had to wear a dumb looking card around my neck and show it to everybody anytime I got up to get a re-fill. Never again. Sure I could actually see the band but what was missing was the spontaneity and, truthfully, the disorder. I looked at my cage-mates and, not surprisingly, they were sitting, behaving themselves and paying attention to the show. They had tarps to protect them from the sun and real chairs to sit in but they may as well have been sitting in the basement at home watching the whole thing on t.v. Phhht!.

This summer's festival season has begun. My chair, a little ratty from use, is beside the door. The season finales are wrapping up and I'm ready to go. I just hope it doesn't rain too much. The dampness makes my joints ache. I can't believe I just said that.