Oh my goodness, I SO want to write about my conference experience, I want to SO BADLY and I’ve only had two. But, in the hopes that I will get over myself, I will just keep that quiet!

#SPILLTHETEA

Alias, no. I will be a good person and just, in the words of someone much wiser than I, “Be a duck and let everyone roll off my back.” However, ACK!! 🙂

Along with that, I hope to get back on some kind of writing schedule. This whole “new teacher” thing is utterly exhausting (my wife keeps saying “I told you so”), so I’m not writing as much. That will change.

Today’s slice, Owl City. We spent one weekend with my roommate and his wife and the next weekend, we were right back into Minnesota, this time at their place. When they heard we were coming to this concert, they said, “you won’t get a hotel, you are staying with us” which was super nice of them. Kevin actually gave us his house key, because they were on a date (awwww!), so we got up there and just kind of crashed until they got home. The next morning, they took us to a great pizzeria (highly recommend Joey Nova’s Pizzeria in Excelsior – AMAZING slices!), then to look at the lake and the Excelsior Brewing Company (another great place to visit). It was a pretty cool day if only we hung out with them. As I’ve said before, Kevin and I have been friends since we first met in college, and with the addition of Lisa in the mix, it’s just been better. But I digress.

So, we headed downtown for the concert. When I mentioned this concert back in May, my wife said, “That sounds fun, get the tickets.”

#what

I know, that never happens. So before she could change her mind, Ticketmaster had my money and we were set. Now, in hindsight, I’m not sure we’d have hung out together the week before because it made for a couple of longer weekends, but what can ya do, am I right?

First, the Uptown Theater! What a treat! It’s a relatively small place and was sold out (which is why buying tickets in May for an October show is a good thing). We had general admission tickets, so we were right on the floor, probably 20 feet away from Adam (the frontman) and the instruments played.

The warm-up band was Dan, the frontman of a group called Augustana. They’ve been around for quite a while so a few songs felt familiar. It was Dan and his piano, which was amazing. He’s got such a voice and listening to the lyrics as he’s singing, you can tell that so much work, passion, and energy was put into each song. Augustana is going on tour next spring, and guess what, they’ll be in the Twin Cities! 🙂

Then it was Owl City. About a week before the concert, my wife gave me the “well, maybe this isn’t my kind of music” bit, and I was like “whatever” because we had the tickets in hand! 🙂 And honestly, I can see why she was a bit apprehensive. I’m not sure how we got married, knowing our musical tastes, because they are SO different. She was a bit of new age hippy kind of girl where I grew up on oldies, then some good old fashioned rock, then hiphop, and now house music. If our music tastes were a predictor of marriage, it would not be good! 🙂

#oops

You can’t win them all, that is for sure! However, Owl City was amazing. Yes, there was a LOT of synthesizer, but have you listened to ANY Owl City song? It’s all over the place. I love that the music is so positive! Adam Young, the front man, has a super positive attitude and it’s reflected in his music. My wife commented during the concert, “Everyone is smiling. This is a little strange.” She wasn’t wrong because there was so much positive energy in that little theater! Any negative vibes that may have been there were quickly canceled out!

My only negative thing to say: the concert was an hour long

#what

Now, I know the concert was to push out his new CD, Coco Moon (which is pretty awesome), but the man has hours and hours of music to play. Of course, we got to sing along to “Fireflies”, but come on, we paid good money for these tickets and we were in our car, leaving by 10:00? Geez!

However, even with our brief time together, it was amazing. The light show, the sounds, all of it made these tickets a very worthy purchase! I asked my wife if she’d see him again, and got a resounding “no”.

Me? I’d love to see him again in concert. The positive energy in the theater, just the smiles and singing, and joy all around me, it would be worth it to see them again!

What’s next? I need to keep my eyes open. The Des Monies concerts are trash, country and metal. Apparently, Iowa isn’t a hub for good live music?

We’ll see. Until then,

“To ten million fireflies
I’m weird ’cause I hate goodbyes
I got misty eyes as they said farewell (they said farewell)
But I’ll know where several are
If my dreams get real bizarre
‘Cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar “