If I Were The Man I Was 20 Years Ago, I Would've Stayed For The Encore

I actually hung out with people at the State Fair Thursday!  Yeah, it was weird socializing, especially since it was my friend whom I hadn't seen in years, her husband and their friends, but it was cool not being a lone wolf for once!

So we were all going to the Duran Duran concert at the Fair.  I knew my friend was going when she said she was on Facebook.  I was wavering because I thought there was still a chance I was working the Gopher football Game, but once I saw that she was going, I decided to splurge.  But obviously that meant that I was not going to sit with them.  In fact, they were down on the main level while I was up in the bleachers.

No matter.  Duran Duran was great, even though they stuck to the same setlist they've played throughout their tour like it was instructions on firing a nuclear weapon.  The on-stage patter might have been the same, too.  But Simon Le Bon's voice sounds just like it did when I heard him on the radio when I was kid back in the early 80's, and that matters a lot.  I shelled out $110 for the ticket, the most expensive ticket I have ever spent for a concert, and I am kicking myself that I probably could've saved myself at least some of the $13 in fees if I just went up to a box office when I was at the Fair on Sunday and bought it then ... but I still thought on Sunday there was an outside chance that I would be working the Gophers Game.  (Oh, aside: On Monday, the production for the Game e-mailed me and said there was a last-minute cancellation and can I work.  I think he e-mailed me Monday evening, when I got back from a near-debilitating day at work.  I replied about five hours later.  He e-mailed me back in the morning saying that someone had beaten me to the punch.  Oh well.)

Anyway, I saw on website Setlist.fm, where I discovered Duran Duran has a script and it's sticking to it, that it's a typical show.  There were two opening acts: The legendary Nile Rodgers & Chic and Bastille.  The show started at 7 (actually several minutes before 7; the only other act I've seen start before the announced start time was Bob Dylan when I saw him at the Xcel Energy Center).  I always thought there had to be an end time to Grandstand shows of 10:15 because that's when the fireworks always start.  I was wrong; one of the management workers there is a friend of my friend, and she hung out with us for a bit, and she said that the fireworks start only when the main act is done.  (Thought The Black Keys, the Grandstand act on the previous Thursday, played through the fireworks, which I think is a no-no.)  Furthermore, this management worker gave another one of the friends of my friend a photo of the runtimes for the show.  Duran Duran gets on at 9:10 and leaves at 10:55.

Gosh, that's a long time.  I was spooked by that because the driver on the bus that took us from the Park 'n' Ride to the Fair said the last bus leaves at 11:30.  Used to be midnight.  That doesn't give me much time from the end of the show to the spot where the return bus picks me up.  And moreover, there usually is a crush of people who run toward the buses as soon as the fireworks stop.

That's when my old age kicked in.  On Sunday I bolted for the exits; I saw the fireworks while I was in my car.  And the feeling that I escaped the thundering hordes of leaving fairgoers convinced my old butt that I was right in leaving while others were fireworks-gazing.  But on Thursday night that meant I needed to get out of the Grandstand early or I would get stuck in the middle of everyone heading out.

Consequently, I decided to leave before the encore.  Could I have stayed for the encore and then left as the fireworks started?  Yes, but I was afraid that I would have gotten a seat on the bus only for it to wait 20 minutes as people who did stay behind in the Grandstand to watch the fireworks also got on the bus because that bus was the last bus of the night.  So what would have been the use of bolting early?

Because of Setlist.fm I knew the two songs that Duran Duran were singing.  I saw Le Bon don a Duran Duran-themed hockey jersey as he made his way back out onto the stage for the encore and the singing of "Say A Prayer," and I decided to leave.  I think "Rio" is a great song, but I don't like it enough to stick around and see it.  I got on the bus, which thankfully had a lot of seats, and I waited about five or ten minutes before it set off.  The firework show started as we headed north on Snelling.

I did the right thing.  I am OK leaving a concert early for old fogey reasons.  The only reservation I have is the fact that I paid $110 for the ticket and I didn't stay for the whole thing.  That seems like a waste to me.  I think that reservation is the only umbrage-related principle I share with my 27-year-old self.  Twenty years ago, I would not have minded the crowd and the jostling and the potential to miss the last bus because I was young, man, and I get to see Duran Duran!  But now, eh, I'm OK.