Best People Watching EVER!

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending the INXS concert at the Denver Convention Center. Yes, you heard me correctly, the Convention Center.

First the background: My friend, Kimberly, had an extra ticket because her friend bailed on her, and for some reason was having immense trouble filling the vacant seat; Jackie to the rescue. Not only did I think a night out on the town sounded fantastic, but I was moderately interested in seeing INXS in concert, despite the lack of Michael Hutchence.

Kimberly and I arrived at the Convention Center quite early, about an hour before the show was beginning, as she wanted to see the opening band, which was the runner-up on "Rockstar: INXS". (Sidenote about my comma/quotation mark punctuation later... because it's bugging me.) My first indication that this concert would be, to say the least, interesting was the fact that it was at the Convention Center. The Denver Convention Center is an enormous building, similar to McCormick Place (though not THAT big); I have been there a couple times, once for the Beer Festival and another time for the Ski Expo. I couldn't imagine where this show was going to be held, but little did I know, there is a huge Lecture Hall in the Convention Center that serves as a venue for concerts. We walk into the Convention Center and our people watching officially begins. There's a wide variety of people perusing the merch booth, buying drinks from the wedding reception-like bars set up all over the lobby, and purchasing spiked smoothies from the Maui Wowi booth. (Oh yes, I did just say Maui Wowi.)

We grab a couple beers as the fun is truly beginning. I spot a couple (either a boyfriend/girlfriend or mom/son combo) wearing what appeared to be matching homemade INXS jean jackets. They were glorious. I speculate Mom, with permed hair, took the new INXS album artwork and iron-on transferred to a t-shirt and sewed it to the back of the jackets. Around the album artwork as well as the top-back seam, she bedazzled red sequins to accent the artwork and complete the look. Oh yes, the son/boyfriend/man had a bedazzled jacket as well. I debated following them to get a picture of this up close, however that proved to be unnecessary because when we walked into the lecture hall, they were up in the front row, not too far from us. Though, sadly the photo I took of them seated did not come out very well as it was dark in there.

Once we found our seats (which was a difficult task, as the employees of the convention center were completely clueless), we sat down and were trying to figure out the attendees of the show. See, there were quite a few people there that appeared to be over 45 years old, a few people that were more-or-less my age, and then the 9 year olds that came with their parents. We really were attempting to decipher how these much older adults had come to the decision to attend an INXS show. Let's take the lovely grandmother in the row behind us decked out in, what she was probably thinking, was a cute J. Lo-esque pink sweatsuit with the word "meow" across the chest. Also, the 45 year old bleach-blonde woman with snakeskin pants and a revealing crocheted tank top (I have to be truthful, the woman DID have the body to pull off snakeskin pants, it was just the fact that she probably pulled them out of closet retirement for the first time in 15 years). And for all of you Seinfeld fans, the woman donning a puffy shirt. Wow, I'm noticing a pattern here: nearly all of the, let's call them, interesting people were women. The biggest thing I noticed about the men at the show was that they were predominantly unattractive and wearing terribly oversized clothing.

On to the actual show... Opening for INXS, Marty Casey and the Lovehammers with their ultra-cheesy, super hook-y single, "Trees". Oh I must find the words for this to post, because it is just oh-so ridiculous and it was absolutely frightening the amount of people that knew the words for this song and were 'rocking' out to it. Ah, yes, here we go:

"It will be you and me up in the trees
And the forest will give us the answers
It will be you and I up in the sky
It's a combination for disaster"

I think seeing that pretty much sums up their performance, though I'll continue...

Highlights of their performance included seeing Marty Casey's asscrack one too many times in his low-rider, super-tight, black rockstar pants and me questioning when one song was ending and another beginning, as they all sounded exactly the same. Did I mention Marty Casey's obnoxious hand motions and dances with the microphone?? To say the least, I was unimpressed, though I must say he did get a crowd of 50+ year old people going. Also of amusement was the old lady next to Kimberly who had a 7 foot tall person in front of her and kept leaning in front of Kimberly (and not her husband) to get a glimpse of Marty.

Next up, the INXS set which was actually very good. They played a ton of their old stuff and just a few new songs, I got to see along to quite a few songs like "New Sensation", "Original Sin", and "Mystify". Although, I think Kimberly was not impressed with my knowledge of the words, as she knew pretty much every single song and all of the lyrics to ALL of the songs. J.D. Fortune (I keep on wanting to call him J.D. Powers!), INXS' new lead singer is quite a cutie, and despite being pretty sick for the show sang decently (or were we hearing a backing track??) and put on a good show.

I don't have much bad to say about INXS' performance, except it was quite weird to see them performing sans Michael Hutchence. The biggest thing we noticed was that 30%+ of the concert attendees did not know the old, classic INXS tunes. They got all fired up when they played anything from the new album and the "Rockstar: INXS" show, so I think they were just going to the show because they were reality TV show fans. It made me sad to be in the same room as so many reality TV freaks. Okay, I'll admit, I am a reality TV freak at times, but let the record state: I DO NOT attend concerts or events because of reality TV.

The end. ;)

OH! I almost forgot my little comment about commas and quotation marks. It was just going to bug me because I know some people that read my blog are grammar-geeks (and you know who you are), and I was thinking that these people may think that I was incorrectly punctuating my blog, thus thinking me an idiot.

I prefer saying this:
I am currently reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".
rather than this:
I am currently reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

Apparently, in the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic. I am much more worldly than US education allows and abide by the logical grammatical rules of the United Kingdom. "In the United Kingdom, Canada, and islands under the influence of British education, punctuation around quotation marks is more apt to follow logic. In American style, then, you would write: My favorite poem is Robert Frost's "Design." But in England you would write: My favorite poem is Robert Frost's "Design". The placement of marks other than periods and commas follows the logic that quotation marks should accompany (be right next to) the text being quoted or set apart as a title."

Just had to get that off of my chest. ;) And, I do know I am also one of those grammar-geeks.