Going to a concert!

We're going to a concert! !

All right, it's not until the end of April, but I'm still excited. Loreena McKennitt, who makes beautiful music, is finally doing another tour. Last fall, she released An Ancient Muse, the first album she'd done in close to ten years. (Long story, but she took some time off after her fiance's death.) I didn't discover her music until after the last tour, so DH and I swore that we'd get tickets the next time she was anywhere in our area, which we figured would be Chicago at the closest. And we were giving "area" a very broad definition, including the option of going to Canada for a concert if we had to. She's been touring Europe the past few months, which unfortunately is too far away to fit our broadly-defined area. :(

But, last Friday, the Loreena Yahoo-group was buzzing with the news that some tour dates had appeared on Ticketmaster's website. More buzzing, all weekend, because tickets went on pre-sale today, and everyone was excited and somewhat frantic over the passwords that TicketMaster requires for pre-sales. But Quinlan Road, Loreena's music publishing studio, came through with the passwords and a complete schedule today. And, after choking briefly at TM's assorted fees (*), DH and I now have two tickets to see Loreena at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville TN.

(*) Seriously, folks - TM charges $2.50 for the honor of printing out your own stinking ticket! Using your own paper, printer, and ink. It's insane. Plus the $9.80 per ticket "convenience charge."

And get this: we got awesome seats. Front row, not-quite-center. Beautiful! The Universe is compensating for the really, really, really crappy seats I had for the George Strait concert at the state fair about 15 years ago.

I mean, it was bad. The concert was in the grandstand, so there weren't assigned seats. If you got there early, you had good seats. Otherwise, not so much. I was there with about half a dozen family members, including a cousin, aunt and uncle. We spent the day at the fair, and my uncle made the mistake of giving my cousin B her ticket, and telling her to meet us back at the grandstand gate at a certain time. The time came, we got in line close to the front, and B still hadn't shown up. So we kept letting people go in ahead of us, while we waited for my cousin. Finally, we went in and left Uncle standing near the gate. By this time, the folding chairs were full and we had to hunt for a seat. We finally ended up with the worst possible seats: no chairs, we were perched on a pipe rail in front of the chain link fence. Between the beer wagon and the ambulance, and right behind a very drunk woman who was standing on her chair trying to sing. It was an unforgettable experience. Oh, and my cousin? Well, since she had her ticket, she went in without finding us. She was in the first five rows somewhere. I don't recall my uncle's reaction, but I could have smacked her. And as you can tell, I'm still a little bitter.