Get on your feet

Every year for Christmas I get my parents concert tickets. When I moved out of their house the complaint was I didn’t see my parents as much anymore – but isn’t that kinda the point of moving out?

So it’s become a tradition that the three of us go to a show and have dinner beforehand. I spend hundreds of dollars on the tickets and my mom uses a gift certificate for the meal – fair tradeoff, right?

We had seen Bryan Adams twice before but there were no relevant concerts around Christmastime last year so I got us seats for him again. My mom was excited and wouldn’t stop talking about Summer of ’69, of course the huge hit by the legendary Canadian rocker.

In a sense I was excited for my mom to hear her favourite song (again). And then, Adams played the famous first notes of the song. The crowd was on its feet and the cheering almost overpowered the band.

I was pretty shocked when concertgoers in our entire section were standing up, clapping and dancing to the music and my mom was sitting there with her purse on her lap and hands folded like a bump on a log.

That’s right, if someone looked at our section they’d think, “Oh, there’s an empty seat there.” Nope, she’s there, she’s just sitting down.

It leads to the question of concert etiquette: my mom thought she’d be obstructing the view of the person behind her. Everyone was standing and my mom is short so it didn’t seem like a logical argument in this case. I would understand her point if she was the only one standing and blocking the people behind her.

But I also don’t think it is unreasonable at a concert – with music that naturally gets your toes tapping anyway – to stand up and clap or dance when your favourite songs are played. Is that something people would really be upset about? Or could they just as easily stand up and get even more people on their feet?

I totally understand looking behind you to see if there is a handicapped or elderly person but it was a young crowd in our section and it was OK to let loose. If anything having my mom up and bopping around would have probably won the respect of the crowd with people saying, “Hey, look at the old lady rockin’ out.”

If you want to sit prim and proper, watch a concert DVD at home! A concert is a time to get moving. Next time I get her drunk before the show.