The Day We Saw a Legend

I begin this story on a summery July 25th day, as I was joyfully dropped due to a low census at work.  It gave me just the right reason to stay home and get my computer all ready to go to purchase Garth Brooks tickets.   I headed to Ticketmaster feeling confident, and waited till the 10 o'clock hour.  I clicked right as the clock struck 10.  And then waited for 2 hours before I finally gave up.  We weren't going to see a legend after all.

Garth heard about this, and added more shows to his first stop on his world tour. Since the first 4 concerts sold out in a jiffy, he added 7 more, the man does what he wants.  It's good to be Garth.  It was too good to be true.

Garth is cool in a way that he charges the same exact price per seat whether you are in row 4 or row 104.  It's quite the concept, that first come first serve business.  Because all the tickets to the further shows were sold out AGAIN, I wasn't aware at the time he added more shows, I was like a mouse who didn't get the cheese.  We resorted to Stub Hub, paid a little more, and chose his last show in Chicago.  Secretly, my top three picks to go would have been his first show, his 9/11 show, or his last one.  I was pleasantly happy.

Garth caused quite the commotion on Interstate 90 for all his concerts.  Backing up traffic for miles with people trying to get in and then get out again on the nights he did double shows.  So, we took that into account and showed up early, getting parking right away and actually waiting to enter the building.

So we walk in, and find our seats, get up, walk around again, grab beer and sit back down in our seats, trying to kill time.  We were perfectly happy with our seat choice as we had an easy out to run to the bathroom if need be, totally saying "you know, I wouldn't want to sit that close," as we pointed and squinted our eyes to the front rows.  I made Adam take the forced picture once and then twice because the first lady who took it had no idea what the heck she was doing.  We sat back down, getting excited.  The crowd was starting to form.

In a strange turn of events, this man sits down in front of us, and promptly turns around and says, "Hi, My name is Aaron."  ...great... we have a talker in front of us... "Yah, I'm Aaron and I work for Garth.  What's your name?"  ... holds hand out to shake it...  ....heart beating... oh my... he works for Garth... I'm going backstage... I'm going to meet him...  "So I have two tickets to the second row if you guys want them... you just have to promise to stand and dance and sing the whole time."  "Wait, whatttttttttttt???? Are you for real?"  Aaron said he wasn't joking, showed us the tickets and we crossed our hearts and promised we would have a good time.  He gave us the tickets and then he was off.  Adam and I stared at each other like we were doing something wrong, got up and went to find whatever gate one walks thru to get to the 2nd row.

Upon arriving to the second row, we stared up at our original seats.  All the stress of trying to buy the tickets a distant memory.  "How many rows do you think we moved up?" -Adam.

Life was good in the 2nd row.  Garth started and I thought we were just going to shred apart our vocal cords.  I never screamed so loud, sang so loud, stomped my feet so loud, in my life.

There were times where Mr. Brooks was looking at me.  In my eyes, and mine only.  He worked the crowd like it was no one's business.  Grabbing a girl in the first row's camera, giving it to his band mate, then proceeded to lie on the ground to get in a picture with her and her friends, that his band mate took ALL while singing Friends in Low Places.  What a charmer.  He sang all the hits.  He thanked the crowd over and over.  He was high energy.  He was fun, He was genuine.  Amazing.  I probably would have thought that sitting in one of the last rows like we were originally in as well... but perhaps him flicking his sweat down and being able to see it hit the stage enhanced that a tad.  Adam and I kept to our promise.  We sang, we danced, we saw, we conquered.  We were within feet of a legend.