My Sober Concert

Way back on August 30th, a wonderful event took place.

Zac Brown Band played in Toronto and The Girl, My Guy and I attended the show.

Now.... 

...last year,  ZBB played in Toronto and My Guy and I attended the show...and I imbibed rather heavily...mostly RockStar [+Vodka]s and a few Bacardi Breezers...as is evidenced in this blog post aptly titled... My Drunk Concert . I had a whoooooooollllle big bunch o' fun BUT I feel that while I may have gotten the most out of the spirit and the vibe of the show, I kinda missed a lot of the finer points...like the encore...and the coyote. The day after that show I swore to you, my Beloved Readers, that, if ZBB ever came back to Toronto and I was lucky enough to attend, I would attend SOBER and I would beat down my basic inner nature and stay for the encore.

Here's my video vow:

So, August 30th arrived and the three of us piled into the car and made the journey to the Big Smoke and things were going swimmingly until THIS...

Damn.

When all hope of getting to the concert before ZBB came on had all but faded (we had already for definite sure missed the opening act The Sadies ...a very cool Canadian Indie band...oops) but then My Most Excellent Guy had a brilliant idea...he suggested that The Girl and I hop out of the car and walk to the Molson Amphitheatre...we'd get there faster à pied than we would en voiture. 

He is a fine selfless soul.

Neither The Girl or I are particularly selfless so it didn't take much persuading for us to leap out into traffic (slow-moving as it was) and sprint for the venue.

We got there and then had to wait in line FOREVER for the "facilities"  and I came terrifyingly close to peeing my pants and then we made our way through the drunken masses...barbaric boors... ;) ...and got to our seats and did a little happy dance because.....

Look how close we are to the stage!!!

YAY!!!!!! 

And then we did what girls at concerts are supposed to do and took a myriad of selfies. Apparently, according to my daughter, I am crap at taking selfies so I had a crash course in Selfie Photography and these are the results...

Obligatory Concert Mother/Daughter Selfie

'Nother One

'Nother One

The mic is in place...the tension mounts...

And here is when My Guy, out of the blue, pops in beside us...telling us a wonderful story of how he got fed up and frustrated with the fact that the traffic was not moving AT ALL and he noticed that there were parking spots available in the parking lot right off the highway... and a Parking Lady had just told him that he'd have to travel (at breakneck speed...a snail's breakneck speed) another 3 whole blocks...

"Well"...said My Guy to himself...

"F**K THAT!"

...and cranked the wheel to the right and drove up and over the curb and the boulevard into the supposedly full parking lot that was right in front of the front gates...and found a sweet spot right at the front of the parking lot right in front of the front gates.

Oh yeah!!!

Take THAT stupid Toronto traffic jam.

So, after patting himself heartily on the back to congratulate himself for accomplishing a feat of ballsy and timely 4X4 wheelin' parking ingenuity, he sprinted and got to us just in time for THIS....

The Zac is in place!!! YAY!!

The Band

The guys slow it down a bit...and yes that is a taxidermied(sp) coyote...awesome.

The Girl "enjoying" the show ;)

I got photobombed...Brilliant!!

Look Ma!! No Booze!! Vow #1 fulfilled.

This is me last year...lots o' booze. Pre-Vow #1

Me and My Guy

And...

Guess what!!??

I stayed for the encore.

Yes, I did....and I'm soooo happy that I did because otherwise, I would've missed the whole band reappearing on stage in glow-in-the-dark skeleton suits...HA!! I haven't seen that old trick since The Boy's 5th Birthday/Halloween party... Jack didn't play the fiddle though.

Proof that I stayed for the Encore...Vow #2 fulfilled.

Glow-in-the-dark Skeleton suits...yep.

The concert was INCREDIBLE!!

Goddamn they put on a good show. They did all their big hits and a bunch of their hilarious songs and we heard a few anecdotes and they did some kickass covers ...they did some Zeppelin, Metallica's Enter Sandman, Bob Marley's One Love,  Eagles' Seven Bridges Road and Bryan Ferry's Avalon...and of course, a crazy high-energy rendition of  The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Yep... 

....good stuff.

Great concert.

Oh...and then the great concert was made even greater when it turned out that the parking lot that My Guy had so tricksily.... and illegally ... parked in was "Pay on Entry" and since he had entered by unconventional means...we didn't have to pay for parking...in Toronto...at the Molson Amphitheatre....

Oh yeah!!

Anyhow...great concert. Hugely enjoyable to be there but not necessarily all that much fun to recount because there are no ParkingLot RockStar Shenanigans to report.

...hmmmmm

...just a minute.

I've had a brilliant brain wave. 

There is always...

NEXT YEAR!!!

Next year...I'll have many boozy drinks...and I won't stay for the encore.

One year on...one year off...one year on again!!!

Balance.

Yin. Yang.

Sounds like a plan.

Next year there will be scores of hilarious hijinks to relay and that post will be waaaaay more fun to write and to read.

I'm a genius.

It's a date!! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

p.s. I am not entirely sure why the whole post (except for one paragraph) is "centred".

...I can't fix it. 

I tried.

But...

I can't.

Weird.

!