Wild Saturday Night in the City

So Saturday night was a date night.

We had tickets to see Citizen Cope at the Verizon Wireless center.

Our last experience at the Verizon Wireless center was to see Ray LaMontagne. That night went less than smoothly. It was about 2 years ago. We found the location of the building, but not the parking. We ended up parking approximately 78 miles away. After the long trek, we get to the door to discover that no cameras were allowed. We were not about to go all the way back to China to the car. They told us the Hard Rock Cafe next door would hold it for us. Toward the end of the concert, I started getting nervous that the Hard Rock was going to close before we got out. So, Mr. Z went over to get it. After a while, I started to get worried. So I went to see what was taking him so long. He got the camera, but they wouldn't let him back in the concert. Even though he had his ticket, they said that they couldn't let anyone in after a certain time. He missed the one song he really wanted to hear. Then we had to huff it back to China.

So this time, we knew what to expect. We didn't even try to bring the camera. We also researched the parking situation.  There is an underground parking garage right across the road.

It was scary. The ceiling is so low and Mr. Z started having a mild anxiety attack and difficulty breathing from slight claustrophobia. After parking we had to climb our way up the stairs out into society. By this point we had no idea where we would come up.  We felt like underground dwellers emerging into civilization.

We gathered our bearings and went right in.  It was pretty close to showtime and we didn't exactly have seats.  General admission was standing only.  We thought we would have to either push our way to get close to the front or hang out in the back. We turned the corner, and both said "Oh." The place was virtually empty. I think we were both relieved. We don't really care for crowds. Actually we loathe crowds.

Anyway, soon the lights got low and the crowd started getting antsy. I don't really know much about Citizen Cope. I have a copy of the CDs Mr. Z has. But neither one of have seen many pictures of him. So when musicians came out on the stage, we weren't exactly sure if this was an opening band or the one we bought tickets for. If took us well into the second song to determine it was indeed not Citizen Cope. We didn't recognize the songs and there were some instruments on stage that were not being used. Our deductive reasoning skills are killer. It was a pretty good opener. Gary Clark Jr from Austin.

In the mean time the place started to fill up and people started closing in around us. Ugh. One guy, Simon, who we spoke to several times tried to sell us Mega Death tickets for the next night. Umm... we don't exactly .. uh..look like we would be interested in a Mega Death concert. We told him as much. He agreed, but didn't want to 'discriminate against any possible interested parties'.

The show was really great and Mr. Z got to hear the song he really wanted to. It was the the very last one.

And Citizen Cope looks like this.

Now, if you ever go to his concert, you'll know if it's him or the opener.