It's Not Just The Concert

In case you're just joining me this week, Hubby and I went to Chicago this past weekend. The catalyst for the trip was a Jimmy Buffet concert.

If you've never been to a Jimmy Buffet concert, it's not just a concert. If you've ever been to one, you know this already. The concert is only half the fun.

The pre-concert tailgate parties are a cornucopia of entertainment in and of themselves. You don't even need a ticket for this!


As Hubby stated in his post, he got totally wasted at a Jimmy Buffet concert last year. He promised me this time we would walk out like this:


And I wouldn't be dragging him out by one foot because he looked like this:


If I had to drag him out, I would totally be freaking out. Not just because we spent so much money on a weekend in Chicago solely to attend this concert, but because he would have turned into a woman!

We were wandering around the parking lot looking for his co-worker (Hubby also covered this in his post), and we saw some awesome, party-ing Parrotheads.

As well as some a**es:


Then, there were a few who were proud of their deodorant. Or they were just really happy to be there. I don't know. I didn't get that close enough to ask:




Lots of Parrothead paraphernalia:





One of my favorite pieces of paraphernalia is this:


One of Jimmy's (yah, we're on a first name basis) songs is simply called "Fins". When the song comes on, you're supposed to put your arms above your head making a shark fin with your hands. My five year old can name that song in two notes, puts her hands above her head and says, "Fins Up!" Wow, what are we warping her mind with?

This guy really cracked me up:


Looks like an innocent Parrothead, right? Oh, no. He had a fishing pole and was casting out beads. As soon as someone reached for the beads on the ground, he'd reeled them back in.

Perhaps that's why I saw this sticker I saw on the ground (quite near him):


It was time to go in the stadium. I thought I'd have to put away the camera, but Hubby graciously offered to "sneak" it in for me.

How are you going to do that?

He grabbed his crotch.

And I let him do it.

Then, I used it!

Once we were inside the stadium, the beach balls were blown up faster than a woman with PMS can down a bag of chocolate chips.

Yes, that's beach balls at a concert. Jimmy expects it to be a beach party. And who goes to the beach without their balls? Well, us apparently. We didn't have one of our own, but there were plenty to go around.

Since, I had the camera, I took pictures:


Our seats were pretty far away. Even with the zoom extended as far as possible, I couldn't get any kind of detail up on stage. Good thing Hubby had his binoculars with automatic image stabilization.

I put the camera lens in the ocular lens of the binoculars to take these pictures. Sorry they're blurry. We'd had a little bit to drink before hand and there was a lot of crowd movement. Keeping the binoculars AND the camera steady was a tough job.





Silver Lining:

1. It was a great concert.


2. Hubby remembered it this time.


3. I didn't have to kick his butt.

PS - Turns out Hubby didn't have to sneak in the camera. We completely missed the sign that said that cameras under six inches (aka point & shoot) were allowed. *sigh*