Everyone's in the Parking Lot

I have been to a lot of shows in my life. My very first was Five Iron Frenzy at Phoenix First Baptist Church when I was 11 years old, and I have continued to attend regularly since. In high school, I was only allowed to go if it was a) A weekend night and B) If my brother was going. As I recall it was because it was "different for girls" and I, being a girl, wouldn't be able to handle it without his watchful eye. Looking back, I'm not sure how much trouble I could have gotten into at a New Found Glory show, but hey, it was understandable, not to mention that this part of the story is totally irrelevant to the point of my post here.

Now typically, as I only had so many resources to find music without the glorious entry of MySpace, I was there to see bigger bands who were the ones headlining. In usual fan girl fashion, I was always there early, clutching my disposable camera and making sure I had ample time for teeshirt buying, bathroom going and prime spot taking. (were any of us ever so young?) Id sit anxiously awaiting (insert pop punk band here), talking about how (insert probably better band here) opening "like OMG sucks" just because it was the cool thing to say. I re-established my punk rockness and didn't waste my mosh pitting skills for some opening band.

Now that I'm 21, have my own car and my own opinions (fancy that) the thing that's changed is showing up fashionably late as opposed to just openly ignoring opening bands. That way you avoid the awkward "in between set" conversation and/or if you end up going alone, theres less idle time, more rocking time.

Which brings me to Sunday. I was sitting at my desk, trying to convince myself that I wasn't going to have to go to school the next day. I took the time in which I should have been looking over my schedule to instead look up at my ever growing bulletin board of memorabilia...show flyers...signed things that do me no good....stickers, playbills, etc., not to mention a stupid amount of ticket stubs. My eyes fell on a ticket to a show for The Long Winters last fall. I remember showing up a little late, being irritated that underage kids were barricaded off to the side, not paying any attention to the bands who opened but instead gawking like a 14 year old girl at the fact that members of The Format were in the crowd. So it goes. I took another look at the ticket and noticed the opening acts listed. "Menomena" and "What Made Milwaukee Famous". It was at that moment I openly said "good god, I suck!" Those two bands just so happen to be two of my favorites, rotating frequently through my iPod. What if I had just paid a little more attention or gotten there a little earlier? This forced me to look through some of my old show flyers, thinking back to when we put on a show in high school that featured Scary Kids Scaring Kids that drew around 200 people, a band that is now signed to RCA records and playing to sold out crowds. How many bands have I seen that I wasn't paying attention to that maybe are some of my favorites? I've attended SXSW and CMJ respectively, and I don't even want to begin to think about who I might have missed there, so I'm not going to try.

Maybe there's something to be said about those opening bands and the general audience approach to them. Let's try not to shut ourselves out or be fashionably late anymore (we all know we're not all that fashionable anyway, am I right?) Come inside, uncross your arms, open your ears and experience something new. And if they actually do suck, you'll get a good laugh.

Song of the Moment: Let's face it. I'm watching High School Musical 2.