And I didn't wear a stitch of black

I was under no illusions whatsoever that I was cool for attending the Daughtry concert last night. Daughtry. As in Chris Daughtry. You know, that bald guy that didn’t win American Idol a few years ago? And thank goodness he didn’t win, cuz, well, no doubt you, too, have been impressed by the stellar career Taylor Hicks has carved out for himself instead. Wouldn’t have wanted to get in the way of that.

It actually was a great concert. Even Rob admitted he liked it. He said he would have liked it even more had it not been for the loud, screaming, uncreativeness known as The Opening Act. It was some band from Tennessee that probably Volunteered to leave the state before it got kicked out for being them uppity rock ‘n’ rollers.

The first thing I noticed as we sat in the bleachers (did I forget to mention…Daughty was last night’s headliner at the Western Washington State County Fair in Puyallup. Let’s see Taylor Hicks top that. Or better yet, pronounce it.), was the diversity of Chris’s fan base. Since he got famous on the generationally friendly American Idol, the crowd was bursting with grade schoolers, ‘tweens, teens, parents, and grandparents. So NOT the scene when I was a modern rock concert goer in the '80s. NO WAY would I have wanted to see my parents rockin' out to the Thompson Twins! But last night, we saw families arrive together. The older couple sitting next to us had teenagers in another section, too cool to hang with Mom and Dad. I watched a number of fans put on their reading glasses to check their seat assignments. Two rows in front of us, a 3 month-old sported hot pink ear plugs. Next to us, two 14 year old girls took tons of digital pictures of themselves “At The Concert.”

The other thing I noticed was how much technology has changed the concert experience. Unlike 1984, these days everyone has cell phones. All through the concert, the teenagers in front of us text messaged friends sitting in another section. The parent next to me tried to call her kids down front (she had an iPhone. I think she was just showing off). I used my phone to record various snippets of favorite songs LIVE. Remember the days of holding cigarette lighters up to either sway to a slow song or demand an encore? Gone. Now it’s the blue-white glow of flipped open cell phones. I saw only two old school lighters flickering. They looked very orange and not very bright. Even Chris got into it. At one point he told everyone to get their cameras ready. On his count, everyone took a picture with their cellphone. Flashes everywhere. It was a very bonding experience.

When I was a teenager, I would come home from concerts dripping in sweat from being smushed up front by the stage, ears ringing from being right next to the speakers, hair reeking of clove cigarettes from standing in line to get in. Last night, I bought a sweater on the way out of the smoke-free fairgrounds. My ears were ringing from being in the almost-nose-bleed section. My back ached from sitting too long on the metal bleacher. And I had plenty of cell battery left since I’m too cheap to send text messages. For that matter, I’d love to show you the picture I took at Chris’s request – it’s of the arm and cell phone of the teen girl in front of me – but I’m clueless about how to get the photo off of my phone. Besides which, it would probably cost me something and I'd much rather spend my fun money on a nice glass of Zinfandel.