Live Entertainment

[Mike]

K.Flay & grandson
The only silver lining to having our Texas vacation cancelled is that it means my wife and I got to go see this concert. We're both huge fans of grandson, and I love K.Flay. My wife also likes her, but mostly vicariously through me. The opening act was Jack Kays, then K.Flay, with grandson as the closer. The show was phenomenal.

All three acts consisted of the named star plus one guitarist and one drummer to support them. All three had great music. I'd never heard of Jack Kays, but I loved almost everything he did. I specifically recommended him to Aidan later, because it seemed like his style and Aidan was already a fan. Cool! But what got me was the stage presence. They're all kind of angry/angsty hard rock with varying levels of hip-hop mixed in, and the singer always spent a lot of time thrashing about the stage as they performed. The energy and emotion were huge, and I loved every moment. K.Flay, at 37, has been doing this longer than the other two, and she absolutely commanded the stage. She filled up the space and provided a pro-athlete level of physicality. grandson did much the same, but he let his thrash and flashing lights do more of the work than she did. Jack Kays looked like a high school kid (he's 24) and he was working his ass off, but you could visibly seeing him thinking about his dynamic frontman moves as he performed. He was good, but he's got years ahead of him to perfect that.

In a theater of 800 people, Lisa and I spotted six people older than us. I would guess the median age to be 23. The dress code (which we were not informed of) was black... or black with white if you absolutely had to have a second color. Mesh anything coupled with ripped anything was also very popular. And they were all so goddam NICE. It was a small and old venue with no real parking, plus it was mostly general admission, so we showed up super early and spent almost 90 minutes waiting for doors to open. We chatted with a bunch of kids, and they were just all so thrilled to find out we weren't in the wrong line. It made them happy to see a diversity of fans for this thing they loved. And everyone was wonderful to each other.

There was a dispensary across the street from us, and for a while, the dispensary owner's brother came over and proceeded to get really high in front of everyone while offering to sell joints for a buck each. We saw a couple people take him up on it, but the overwhelming response was to giggle with embarrassment with your friends and act like it's the funniest thing in the world that someone would offer you drugs. It was remarkably wholesome. Eventually the joint peddler got so high that he stripped off his shirt and shoes and lay on the sidewalk amidst his fast food garbage. That's when someone told him that they heard someone calling the cops. He skedaddled.

Lisa got a grandson shirt, and it was like destiny. It was her favorite of the offerings, and the sign warned that they only had one size left (Lisa's), and it turned out to be a soft material, which she loves. She has a lot of concert shirts, and this may well be her favorite, now that her Theory of a Deadman shirt is falling apart.

Plus, after the opening act, I got a message from my oldest son's best friend (SadPotato for those here who have met him and gamed with him) saying, "Hey, my wife saw your Facebook post! We're here too... where are you?" So cool, especially since it's the first time someone I know actually recognized grandson and/or K.Flay. And the fact that he's also a huge fan was an added bonus.

Last bit. Tickets were like 35 bucks, and we paid an extra 15 for "premium balcony". Best money I ever spent. Balcony was still open seating. Most people chose to stand at the balcony railing. But the only seats in the entire venue were a group of traditional movie theater style bleacher seats on the balcony--like 24 of them. We grabbed those, and staff kept people from standing at the rail in front of the bleachers, so no obstructions. AND the balcony has it's own bar and it's own bathrooms, so no waiting ever. Holy schnikes!

Anyway... awesome show, and if you ever have a chance to see a show at The Admiral in Omaha (the old Sokol Auditorium on 13th), spring for the balcony. You won't regret it.

[Kyle]

I weirdly thought this meant one of your kids was having a baby.