I had a really great experience yesterday that I want to tell you all about! For Christmas, Philip got me tickets to see Taylor Swift (one of my favs! I may not like everything she has said or done but I love her music) in concert. My reaction was one of pure glee but also surprise as I had two tickets and asked, “You’re going to go see Taylor Swift?!” 😱🤗. He said something like, “Hopefully not. I asked Holly if she wanted to go with you and she said yes but if she doesn’t then I will.” This was totally amusing to me because Taylor Swift is probably the LAST concert Holly would ever want to go to, but I appreciate that she agreed to be a good friend and accompany me. However, to her relief, I’m sure, I let her off the hook and asked my sister-in-law and friend, Lori, to go with me (Holly was totally cool with not going lol). I wanted Lori to go because she’s a hardworking stay at home mom who doesn’t often get a chance to take a break from life and do fun, just for grown-ups, things. I’m so glad that she was able to go, we had a great time together (even if we did discover just how old we are 😂😉)! The show was at Ohio University stadium in Columbus so we had a little bit of a drive to get there. That part was fine. Waiting in traffic to get to the parking garage was a nightmare and the moral of that portion of the story is to book a hotel room more than 3 weeks in advance to ensure getting one within walking distance of the venue! It literally took us an hour to go about 2 blocks. It was bumper to bumper and we sat for a good while at a traffic light that had an arrow so that we could turn left. There was a crossing guard because of all the foot traffic and he was also a state trooper. When the guy in front of us finally made it to the front of the line, he got extra frustrated that he didn’t get to go, even with a green arrow, because the traffic hadn’t moved enough for him to turn into the street. So instead of waiting patiently for the next one, he decided to turn left on red and almost hit two pedestrians while doing so. The cop went over and they had a nice long conversation (that I unfortunately couldn’t hear😒) that resulted in the cop telling him he couldn’t turn down that street and made him go straight and get back in line with the traffic 😂😂😂. That’s probably a worse punishment than a ticket in that situation. Concert traffic is not for impatient people. I should know 🙄.
Once we FINALLY got inside the stadium we realized we had entered on the wrong side (the even side when our seats were in the odd section), so we had to shuffle our way through thousands of people (seriously!). When we got to the other side, we then had to climb no less than six flights of stairs to get to our section, and then up to row 37, four (four!) rows from the very top. I texted Philip when we made it to our seats and said, “I love you and I appreciate your gift but these are the worst seats possible 😂. He laughed and said that’s all that was available when he bought them). That sort of thing is totally amusing to me and I was just grateful to be there! The only bad thing about sitting atop Mt. Everest is there’s no going to pee. You definitely don’t want to climb those stairs more than once.Also, no vendors are climbing their way up to you. They just want to sell drinks to the thirsty people on the bottom rows, which I kind of don’t blame them for.
Anyway, the opening act was Charli XCX, who was…. interesting. Maybe she’ll be a better performer when she has a little more experience, I don’t know. This was her outfit.
Maybe you can’t tell, because this picture was taken from 12 lightyears away, but that pink is some sort of plastic or vinyl material. I have a hard time listening to someone sing when all I can focus on is the fancy trash bag that they’re wearing for clothes. During one song she put her arms up over her head to make a heart and I swear her sleeves looked exactly like a mesh wreath I’ve seen on Pinterest. Yeah?
She also likes to thrust her crotch forward as a way of dancing and I thought that was frowned upon after Miley Cyrus’s performance a few years ago, but what do I know? I kind of felt bad for her because she was all alone on the stage and she kept having to remind everyone to clap for her and getting us hyped up by mentioning Taylor’s name. Poor girl. Lori and I were a little underwhelmed, obviously, and I wondered aloud to her if maybe we were too old to relate to Charli. But then Lori pointed out that she was wearing “mom” shoes with her fancy trash bag so they had that in common 🤷🏻♀️😂.
The next act was Camila Cabello and she was an improvement over Charli XCX. I actually like some of her music but by 8:36 (the show started at 7:00), Lori and I were both yawning and complaining about our backs hurting from sitting on the stadium benches with no support and that our knees were stiff 😩. Everything is downhill after 25, I swear.
Taylor finally made her appearance at 9 pm (this fact is duly noted. I haven’t been to many concerts but if at the next one the headliners are people I’m less than thrilled to see, showing up 2 hours late may be my course of action). However, the wait was totally worth it because she was amazing and it was a fantastic show. She hasn’t always been a good performer. I remember seeing her on TV when she was first getting started and she was at Jamboree in the Hills (not something I even watch so I have no idea why I saw it then) and she was terrible! I remember asking Philip who she was and he knew her name and told me she was famous. I didn’t believe him, that’s how bad she was. She must’ve taken singing lessons over the years because she’s now an amazing performer and singer. The whole atmosphere was fun. When we entered the stadium they gave everyone a white bracelet that looked like a Garmin smart watch and they lit up different colors during her show. I think that’s the modern day equivalent of a lighter, which isn’t allowed inside anymore. You couldn’t even bring a bag into the stadium. I didn’t know what counted as a bag so I wore my waist pack (aka fanny pack) to hold my money, phone, and keys. Philip makes fun of me for wearing it but I don’t care. They’re really convenient and socially acceptable again lol. Mine is a cool fanny pack anyway, you can hardly see it (and yes, I just used the words “cool” and “fanny pack” in the same sentence). I forgot to tell Lori that you couldn’t bring a bag so she had to keep her stuff in her shorts pockets, of which she only had 2 because the back ones weren’t real. Why do clothing companies do that shit?! Like who decided that girls don’t need to carry things in their pockets? We are the carriers of crap, why wouldn’t we need pockets to store it in?! I think they’re in cahoots with the purse industry (or some companies make both) and they do so to make it necessary for us to have to buy and carry a purse. There’s a fashion conspiracy going on! Be aware of wardrobe manipulation and boycott bottoms with no pockets! I’m starting a revolution! 👊🏻
Anyway, I had a really great time, singing along with thousands of other people to several of my favorite songs, creating a super cool, lasting memory. The only complaint I have with the whole experience is the freaking parking and traffic. We were trapped in a parking garage for an hour, no kidding, until people started going out the “do not enter” and freed us to go. That whole process seems to need some serious reconsideration. Leaving large groups of people to make their own decisions is never a good idea. There needs to be someone in charge to tell people what to do. They can’t be trusted to make good choices, it’s a fact. I actually don’t know if there’s any scientific evidence to support that claim but I’m claiming it anyway. It’s true, I pinky swear. 🤙🏻
The crowd lit up from the wristbands.
I’m grateful to my husband for getting me a gift that I loved so much. My passion is to collect experiences rather than things so this was so much more valuable than material items. I’m also so happy that Lori was able to go with me and share this experience. We visit each week but it’s sometimes hard to have a conversation with children around and this gave us an opportunity to just talk about life. I love you both very much! 😘
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