Band

Today’s random word is Band.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the word prompt was the blog post I wrote called Music a while ago listing all the concerts I’ve been too. And now I have more to add to the list.

I Love the 90s Tour

I used to buy season tickets to the Akron Zips Football team, and there are six home games each season. Two years ago, there were only five home games because we were supposed to play Nebraska as an extra away game, but it got canceled. We did end up playing South Carolina away, but that was a last minute addition at the end of the season.

Due to the one less home game, and the same price season tickets, The University of Akron gave season ticket holders tickets to the I Love the 90s Tour that was coming to Infocision Stadium. The lineup included: Vanilla Ice, Salt N Pepa, Naughty By Nature, Coolio, Rob Base and Young MC.

Going into the concert, I could only name two songs by all those artists – Ice, Ice, Baby by Vanilla Ice and Push It by Salt and Pepa. However once the artists and groups began to play, I recognized a lot more songs – O.P.P by Naughty By Nature, Gansta’s Paradise by Coolio, and Go Ninja Go by Vanilla Ice just to name a few.

Lonestar

When I heard that Lonestar was coming back into town, I knew I had to get tickets. They have been one of my favorite performances to see live, and I was so excited – until I realized it was at the Dusty Armadillo. The Dusty, as it is more commonly known by, is a country dance club.

No assigned seats? Standing room only? Get there like five hours (at least) before the concert starts, just to stand in line outside for doors to open an hour later? What part of any of that sounds fun?

Well I got talked into buying tickets, okay really not forcefully because I did want to see Lonestar. I just hate being out of my comfort zone, and red flags kept going off in my head.

But once we got in and got a table, it wasn’t too bad. We did have to share a table with two other couples because it was a 6-person table, and yes, once the concert started we had to stand on the dance floor. But it actually wasn’t too bad, I mean we stand at other concerts anyway, so why should I be upset at this?

AJ and I did have another woman try to dance with her, but that woman’s boyfriend seemed to be okay with it. Then AJ pawned the woman off to me. I pawned her back to her boyfriend…

Overall it was a great night, and I guess now that we know how the Dusty works with concerts, it won’t intimate me to go to another one sometime.

Great White

AJ’s favorite band of all time is the 80’s hair band Great White. When I saw they were going to perform at the MGM Northfield Park, or Rocksino as it used to be called, I knew I had to buy her tickets. It would be a perfect Christmas present for her, since the concert wasn’t until February.

I didn’t want to just give her the tickets, as I had bought her Cleveland Cavaliers tickets the past three Christmases and I wanted to do something different this time. She assumed I was going to get her more Cavs tickets, so I let her keep believing that. Until she picked up a decent sized box from under the Christmas tree.

After unwrapping the box, and opening it, she found multiple present individually wrapped inside. Most had numbers on them, to indicate opening order, but the biggest one, the one on top, said “Open First.”

When she unwrapped that one, she found a framed poem that I had typed up:

You can count this as a single present,
Or six littles plus THE one.
But you must open them in order,
Or this wouldn’t be much fun.
Hopefully you’re not upset,
It’s not what you thought it would be.
I want to know you’re thinking,
After you open each, your thoughts tell me.
I could have bought you anything,
The selection is just too vast.
Hopefully you figure this puzzle out,
Before you open up your last.

I had created a puzzle for her to figure out her present before she opened up the last gift.

The next six presents, that I made her open up in order, were:

1) a polished stone (to represent a rock) that had “But I love you so much more than to the stars and back” etched into it
2) a roll of pennies (to represent slot machines)
3) poker chips
4) a deck of Carolina Panthers playing cards
5) elastic hair ties (to represent hair bands)
6) a shark toy (to represent Great White [Sharks])

AJ and her Mom both thought I had bought her tickets to Reno, Nevada so we could go to the casinos and visit where she used to live, but unfortunately that wasn’t her ‘real’ present.

The final present she opened was another framed picture, but this time it was a 4×6 printed picture screenshot of the e-tickets I had bought for her. Once she saw the tickets, she was so excited – completely forgetting that it wasn’t Cavaliers tickets, or even plane tickets to Reno. She was practically jumping up and down on the couch, barely able to contain herself. She had never seen them in concert, and didn’t even know they were coming to town. February 22nd, could not come fast enough!

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Going back to the word prompt band, I also thought about when I was in band in third, fourth, and fifth grade as I talked about in my Rock Band post. In third grade, I played violin, and in fourth and fifth grade I played the trumpet – neither of which I was good at. I just do not have an ear for music. Even though I can not sing on key, I do enjoy singing in the car or at home when I am listening to music. It is just very rare that I let other people hear me sing.

I do love listening to music though. Currently Pandora is my app of choice, although I go back and forth between Pandora and Spotify. I am not a YouTube fan at all – neither for music (unless I want to read the lyrics as I am listening to a song) nor for How-To videos. People take too dang long to explain how to do something on You Tube. Just give me written instructions and I can try to figure it out myself. I don’t need a twenty minute video on how to do something that can be in written instructions, like what to set your manual camera at to take the best pictures of the moon.

My favorite bands, or artists, currently are Kenny Chesney and Baylee Littrell. Both artists have been on repeat on my Pandora. I enjoy Kenny’s newer albums over his older ones, with my favorite albums being Song for the Saints and Be As You Are.

Baylee Littrell, son of Brian Littrell from The Backstreet Boys, just released an album called 770-Country, and it is definitely one of my current favorites.

Finally, of course since the word prompt is band, my mind wandered to rubber bands. Have you ever started a rubber band ball? I remember some of my work peers, many years ago, being bored enough to start one. I am not sure how big it became – maybe about the size of a baseball?

I looked up the Guinness World Record for a rubber band ball, and as of when this post was published, the current record holder, Joel Waul made a rubber band ball that weighs in at 9,032 pounds!

He set the record in November of 2008 after starting it in April 2004. His rubber band ball measures six feet, seven inches tall, and he used 700,00 rubber bands.