My Tiara Was Stolen and Stuffed Down Someone's Trousers

Y'all, we were at the Cobb Energy Centre in Atlanta last night. Andit was one of the- oddest- concert experiences I think I have everhad. I saw Eurythmics on the Peacetour on GMA with a bunch offanlist members, Peacetour, and Annie Lennox on Bare and with Sting. So not my first experience. By the way, I wore an "ExecutiveTransvestite" outfit-it's Annie, right? She should appreciatethat. It's fine if you go to the concert in your Gap duds butr espect those of us who have some imagination. And my husband(small black man) wore his punk outfit.

Now let me first say this: Annie's concert goers seem to be skewing older and older- like for the last tour, they were about her age, now they're roughly her parents' age. I saw at least one person with a WALKER, at least one person with a CANE, and a bunch of old men wearing their trousers round their nipples, and those sort of dorky uncoordinated clothes? The kind that almost match, but not really? I mean, her next tour is going to have to be in retirement homes. They're going to have Laurel Oaks buses pull up outside, and a special Dementia sufferers (stop it, I do not suffer from Dementia, I enjoy every minute of it) area and sell Ensure and hearing aid batteries instead of wine. This is like, weird, because she got famous at about 28, so you figure that someone who was a teenage vidiot in '82 would be roughly 40 now, right? Not- that much older than I. Certainly not much older than Trey. But y'all, her audience was like the Colonnade, the gay and the gray. Alex should ask the members of his church who went to the concert. Are these people stealing their children's CD collections? Where do they hear about her? Do they realise she dressed up as Elvis for the '84 Grammys?

And I do not understand who it is that buys concert ticketsnowadays and where they get their manners? Because Carina Round was FANTASTIC- a very gracious, lovely, talented young lady with a really incredible voice- and for someone to shout "Where's Annie?"in the middle of her performance- is so wrong. No matter how awfulthe opening band is- even if they're playing "Beer Barrel Polka" on kazoo and theremin- they got picked, you didn't, respect that. Someone, somewhere decided that they had the requisite talent to be there. Not you. And she was excellent! Well, sort of. She needs to learn to play more than one note on the guitar, she sang very well, but without- like melody? And she played that lesbian kind of music which requires only two or three chords strummed over and over again. But she did have a fabulous voice.

Also if you go to a rock concert- And ok, Annie draws older fans than say, Kid Rock,- but if you want to sit- in your chair- througha rock concert- buy the DVD and watch it at home. It's not the Opera, it's not the symphony, it's not the morgue- if you aren't into dancing at a concert, you've missed the whole point of a live performance. Stay home if you can't get up and get down. I mean, really. We nearly got ARRESTED for dancing during the concert, they sent like 5 police officers; were going to ARREST us- and finally ended up making us move. If you don't dance, you're too old. K? I mean, Annie wants you to get live. These people were, like, really OLD though. They probably had Grandchildren my age.

So we ended up in a box near the stage- which was closer but at a bad angle- in which we could dance, and of course we were dancing fools through the entire thing. If you do not dance to "Little Bird"- you too old. Do whatever it is old people do, like not go to concerts. Is it too much to ask for a venue like this to have a roped off fun area? I was like Epater les bourgeois! Dancing at a rock concert is now a truly Revolutionary act! I wonder if like,Van Halen fans are this boring nowadays. If I go to Morrissey- are his fans going to SIT through the concert and get mad when you dance?

I cannot tell you how seriously angry I am about that.

And then the man in the box next to us snatched my tiara off of my head and hid it in his TROUSERS and refused to give it back. (I am not making this up! Not like the house being infested with wiggers, that I made up) I did eventually get it back though, so nyaah to Alex, who is thinking, Serves you right! But remember last time I wore an Executive Transvestite outfit - this one is a DIFFERENT Executive Transvestite outfit- the blonde twins licked my nipple. We did not want to make any more trouble- the cops were watching us the whole time lest we- well, I don't know. Commit some kind of dancing sin. Perhaps they thought we were going to have sex right there in the box, although why someone would think that- I don't know- we evidenced having pulses at the concert and brain activity so I suppose - you KNOW what dancing leads to, don't you? They must have watched "Footloose" too many times.

So that was another element of strangeness. I'm like, what is NOT going to happen? You really do NOT expect this at an Annie Lennox concert. We expect her fans to be more-respectful and dedicated? I just wish her fans could be as classy and engaged as she is. These people were as mousy and staid as people watching professional golf. But she was fantastic, and very nice about signing afterwards. For those of y'all who haven't been yet to one of her shows, they're like legally obligated to come out and say go away, she's refusing to sign, she's already left, etc. Just go wait by the buses. It's just that the venue didn't make us feel- welcome or appreciated as FANS. I mean, we're Eurythmics/Annie Lennox fans, we're less menacing than bouquets of flowers. I daresay everyone in attendance had a 401(K) and a 10:00 bedtime. I mean, like everyone in the audience probably had a Camry with an "Ask Me About My GrandChildren" sticker.