When are you too old to attend a concert? We’re not talking about a concert at a symphony hall where a patronly usher escorts you to your comfortable velvet seat and everyone around you sits and listens quietly when the musicians play, clapping at the end. We’re talking outdoor concert on the lawn, 10,000 people pushing up to the stage. To sit down is to see only the legs, feet, shoes and butt of the throng around you who will most likely trample you in the event of emergency. You have to defend your space, in a polite way of course. This close to the massive speakers, it’s a bodyquake. Slayer loud. You feel it as much as hear it. At what age does that kill you?
After last night at the Capitol One sponsored Mackelmore/Imagine Dragons concert, we know the approximate answer. About 1 year older than Eric is now. He managed to do it this time. But, next year? He’s probably a goner.
The day began with our now familiar ferry crossing into New Orleans Canal Street landing. Scrupulous study of the RTA trolley routes on the truly terrible Go Mobile app was little defense for the crowds of tourists and spaghetti lines. We were hungry and in search of the city’s best Po Boy sandwich, or a tourist destination that was not the French Quarter, or a seat in an air conditioned vehicle, or pretty much any attraction we could find. Thinking back, we did not have much of a plan.
The 49 trolley ran north of the river then west towards a deserted section of town. Heads down we frantically searched the RTA app for the 49 route. There was no 49 trolley map. We sure felt like we were on a trolley, but reality can be deceiving.
When a New Orleans trolley reaches its final destination, it must wait and rest a long time. You can stay on it, but the system tries to get you to disembark by making it seem like the trolley will never move again. Travel hint – just wait them out. Eventually, the 49 retraced its steps back to the closest point of approach to “New Orleans Best Po Boy” at Mahoney’s. It was in the French Quarter about a half a mile from where we had initially boarded. The uniquely beautiful thing about humans is that we can always rationalize our decisions no matter how peculiar. We rationalized that we most definitely wanted to take a trolley tour of the deserted part of the city before eating.
Every city has a sandwich. The Big Easy has the Po Boy. The sub roll is from a French bakery. The filling is breaded and fried seafood, or, confusingly, liver. We chose the “award wining” $22.95 Peace Maker Po Boy which featured shrimp and oysters lightly fried on toasted Leidenheimer French Bread, “dressed,” with candied bacon to gourmet it up. It paired well with a local beer and a seat at the bar. It is hard to get eating like this wrong. Was it the best Po Boy ever? All we know is that if you take a long enough trolley ride, it sure feels like it is.
In the Big Easy, no one is rushing to serve you. The flip side is that no one is rushing to move you along either. We hung out at the Mahoney bar chatting up the bartender on local cuisine until we felt like moving along. As we made our way by foot back to the concert venue at the ferry landing, we lamented our lack of Comos. What a difference our electric bikes make. The cool sounding cemetery we wanted to check out was 1.75 miles away. A slice of King cake from a famous New Orleans bakery was 2.5 miles west. These are tiny numbers on an electric bike but insurmountable on foot given the time we had.
As we made our way back, the crowds continued to build. Everyone was trapped by the harsh reality of being on foot. Your world is basically constrained to a mile or so radius. The crowds that had been cheering in the SuperDome the night prior were out in masse now that the participants to the NCAA finals had been determined. The vast majority of them were standing in line to purchase a world-famous beignet at Cafe Du Monde. Saturday night during the big game we strolled up and grabbed one like it was nothing. Sunday, it was mission impossible. Take away – go where the crowds ain’t.
As Capitol One shareholders, we were interested to observe how our corporate dollars were being spent. Surprisingly, we were treated just like everyone else and frisked for contraband at the concert entrance. They found the gift box of French chocolates. Our corporate status meant nothing. We were in danger of losing the contraband when we quick-wittedly backed out of the queue, and reattacked at a gate where security was asleep.
Macklemore rocked. We tried to explain to the young crowd around us that he had written Thrift Shop for us. We were the inspiration for the trash to treasure movement. We had pictures of Frank Sputnik installed over the pool to prove it. It was probably the loud music that kept them from fully understanding what we were saying. Nevertheless, we knew we were not only super tight with the sponsor but also the inspiration for the artist so we extra enjoyed the performance. And when we were so tired of celebrating that we could not stand anymore, we just kept standing.
Imagine Dragons front man Dan Reynolds is ALL ABOUT mental health. The bands’ super popular songs are either secretly, or not so secretly, about the struggles we all feel in life. We felt like he was singing directly to us as we struggled with thoughts of our leg muscles cramping. We took inspiration from the performance to keep our spirits high in the face of severe fatigue as we shouted out the lyrics to Radioactive. It really was a lot of fun, and we really are getting old.
Our corporate partner ended the evening with a fireworks spectacular over the river. Not since Red Bank’s Kaboom!! had we had such perfect seats for a fireworks display as we sat waiting for the ferry. Boss welcomed us after an uneventful river crossing, and boy did those heated power seats feel good.
