Oops, I want to write about seeing Mumford & Sons, so why am I quoting Avett Brothers?
Mr. Pom is nothing if not a good sport. Sometime before Christmas, I missed a few concerts that we had tickets to due to schedules, weather, illness (of others). After I was dragged to see we went to see Neil Young in December for his birthday, he felt badly that I had missed some of the concerts that I wanted to see. So when I told him that Mumford & Sons were playing at the new Barclay Center in Brooklyn, he told me to get tickets.
Of course, in this day and age, you can't just log onto Ticketmaster and buy tickets. Har har! No! All the tickets are sold in 30 minutes to robo buyers who quickly flip them onto Stub Hub where you get to pay 4 times the cost. (They can't stop this, but I can't post a comment on a friend's blog without ten minutes of trying to decipher the captcha.)
The ticket prices for their two shows were a tad steep, but Mr. P, being in that magnaminous pre-Christmas mood said, buy them! They'll be your birthday gift! Gulp. Okay. Of course, once the holidays were over and the bills starting pouring in, his mood started to darken ever so slightly over our budget and there were a few mutterings heard about those Mumford tickets.
The week before we were to go, we had tickets to see Citizen Cope at a local theater. These tix were pretty cheap and I was excited since I really like him and it is a small venue and would be a very relaxing, romantic show. Mr. Pom, however, had a little surgery and didn't recupe as fast as we thought and at the last minute, we had to cancel. But it was okay, cause in ten days it was Mumford time!
On Monday, Mr. P did me a favor and dropped the pups off at daycare cause I had to be in court all day in the Bronx. You can kill a wife with a heart attack if you call her at 7 a.m. in a voice barely audible and tell her that you fell on ice in the parking lot, couldn't get up from the pavement in the pouring rain and your knee is swelling up like a balloon and you hit your back (not to mention the minor surgery incision....).
So I had a rough Monday. Obviously, he had a rougher one. The next night was my birthday and THE CONCERT. In Brooklyn. Micalenangela would have gladly come but she would have to take the train up from Baltimore and miss two days of classes. The Bride would have gladly accompanied me, but she is on her honeymoon. In warm, sunny Mexico. In a room with a private pool. So: NO. Mystery Man was my last chance, but knowing he's not a Mumford fan and he has a long drive home and has to work the next day, I hesitated. When he heard about our troubles, he didn't hesitate a second and said he'd gladly go with me. Too bad, he said, I didn't have another ticket cause his girlfriend is crazy about Mumford.
Mr. Pom was suspiciously good-humored despite his aches and pains. He refused all talk of someone else taking me. But you don't even like them, I said. It's a bit of drive, your back acts up on a good day when sitting for that long, you know we'll probably have to stand the whole time....
The concert was amazing. The opening act was another artist I'd just discovered, Ben Howard, who is also British and has very soulful songs with amazing lyrics and has that Brit folk rock amazing guitar, drums, fiddle thing going. I didn't know he was going to be there so I kept punching Mr. Pom in the arm, which may have been the only place not hurting.
Our seats were expensive but fantastic. MM's girlfriend at the last minute got a free ticket through her job so we were texting each other all night, which was fun. All the boys and girls around us were in fact boys and girls of our children's age and boy oh boy do those boys and girls know how to drink at a concert. Wonder they heard anything with all the to and fro-ing for beer, wine, and bathroom. (Don't I sound real old and crotchety?)
We did stand the whole time and in order to fit in with the young'uns, I kept my cell phone at eye level, but I only pretended to watch it on the screen and was really watching it for real in person. I'm sneaky like that in order to fit in with the hipster crowd. (You can buy brats, artisanal cupcakes, sushi and vegan queso con something but don't cause it was terrible.)
And oh, the concert itself? Over Da Top, Brooklyn Style. They had a horn section, drums, fiddlers, bass, dramatic Marcus solos, rousing, clapping, yelling, sing-a-longs, and then almost at the end, they disappeared off the stage and popped up right in front of us for a 4-person harmony with acoustic guitar. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!
But wait - Yes, wait - They ended with - The Weight. Mr. Pom looked like he was going to cry. MM's girlfriend said she sobbed a little. I sang my heart out, and I wanted you to hear it, but the file will not upload to Typepad. Probably just as well since it would be painful to all but me since I am in fact tone deaf.
What a night. What a show. What a guy.
And this is why there is no Color Post. But it is coming soon to a theater near you!
