Live From Your Living Room

Today, my dad and I went to a house concert.

I've heard of these before but have never been to one. House concerts are up close and in your living room performances where you usually have to bring your own chair. Generally, these to seem to feature folky types, who prefer smaller audiences without the fear of having beer bottles thrown at them. Unless of course their songs encourage this kind of thing. They also do it as a way to travel without having to pay for a stage, sometimes get a place to crash and meet the people; a great "grass roots" effort to get your name known in a personal venue.

It didn't hurt, of course, that it also doubled as a pot luck. Any excuse to consume free food in exchange for making guacamole (which I will also consume) is A-OK in my book. I'd probably hold a house concert myself, except I'd have to call it a "Large Walk-In Closet Concert". There is also the fear that they might get sucked into the black hole and then I'd have guilt when I have to ask myself, "Whose remains ARE these?" when I clean it out twenty years from now.

My dad had never heard of this type of concert (which surprised me) and asked me to go with him. We went to see Pierce Pettis, a superb singer songwriter of whom my dad is a big fan. It was just him and a guitar and some stories. I basically sat next to him while he played.

All in all I enjoyed it. But now I'm totally spoiled and it reminded me why I am already an old man in some respects. And not just because I actually knew and enjoyed his cover of Wichita Lineman.

I rarely go to concerts. I can't remember how many concerts I've attended but it's been very few. They were always full of smoke and pot and booze and the people who had already absorbed too much of the aforementioned smoke and pot and booze. The tickets were pricey. It was so loud that the next few days strangers mistook me for a retired, deaf Canadian. "Eh? What was that again? Eh? Speak up, sonny!" I'm sure I enjoyed seeing whoever it was I was musically obsessing over at the time but always came home feeling like a train wreck.

My, look at the time, I must now shuffle off to bed after I take my teeth out.