Peanut Butter and Jams

The absolutely very first time it was with Fiona Apple, but then again, Elise wasn't even Elise yet. She was still mini-Mo and so we're not counting that one. So this will be known as her very-first-all-time-greatest concert ever. That is of course until the next all-time-greatest concert ever. But this will always be her first. Coincidently, Meredith and I were wondering if Elise will be proud or embarrassed that her first concert was Brady Rymer and the Little Band that Could. Meredith's first concert was New Kids on the Block. Sure, that's pretty embarrassing but was timely and even her Aunt Linda (who was super cool to take her and her cousin Sarah) admitted that it was a fun show. But as an avid music listener and concert enthusiast, New Kids is an embarrassing first for Meredith. (note from Meredith: Marty's first was Kenny Rogers. He seems to think that this is cool and not embarrassing at all. He is wrong.)

But regardless of the band, seeing your first concert at 14 months is pretty cool and for what it was, this concert rocked! The UPENN public radio station here has a concert series they call 'Peanut Butter and Jams' (there's a reason they're Ivy League) and Meredith booked us three free tix. Excitement was in the air all morning long and Ellie wouldn't even take a nap. As we got ourselves ready to go to the concert which started at 11:30 AM we sang songs of delight. Actually they were more squeals or screams as Daddy crooned while getting dressed, but it's essentially the same thing. We got into the car with excitement running so high that Ellie promptly took a nap. We parked the car in the parking lot and Ellie slept. And slept. Meredith and I let her sleep and listened to an interesting story on NPR. It was quite a tailgate party. Funny thing - going to a concert with a 14 month old is a completely different experience than the other concerts I've gone to as an adult.

Anyway, she woke in plenty of time and we were able make our way into the venue. The place was packed with kids of all ages running around and parents hunched over like Quasimoto chasing after them and telling them to give that back to the little boy and don't throw the markers and get that out of your mouth and okay, I guess there's no harm in chewing on it a little and do you want some more toast and how about we find mommy, ooh, look at the mirror ball, and say thank you for the baby size maraca and the other fourteen baby-sized maraca already sitting in mommy's bag and please shake that away from daddy's ear and please give that back to the little boy and watch out you're going to get hurt... and so on and so forth.

We finally penned our little excitable girl into an area right in front of the stage. This is Meredith's little girl after all if she's going to go to concerts than she's going to learn how to get up front and stay up front! The concert started late of course 'cause apparently the concert venue people also feel that if these little ones are going to go to concerts than they are going to learn to be patient for the opening act. Not as easy with 400 screaming 0-5 year olds, but we managed.

The headliner, as previously mentioned, was called Brady Rymer and the Little Band that Could. Even before the band came on stage, Elise was dancing to the background music that was playing, shaking her maracas and bouncing around in anticipation - in anticipation of what I am not sure because she surely didn't know that she was going to see a concert. Regardless, she was ready. My first thought as soon as they started was oh my God that's so loud! No seriously, it was really loud. Elise started to cry and Meredith and I looked at each other like maybe we should leave. Mind you, she was crying, but she was still dancing. A second later the surprise at the volume must have checked itself because she turned around to us again, all smiles and giggles.

The band, full-on with back-up singer/dancers, guitar players and multiple percussionists, played a variety of songs (ranging from country to ska) that sounded like they could be regular, adult tunes, except for they all had lyrics like "I lost my barbie...oh wait I found it!" and "Mommy needs a cup of coffee to keep up with you." Ellie danced her little heart out for nearly 40 minutes, which is probably the longest amount of time she has ever paid attention to anything, so that's saying something. But when she lost interest, she completely lost it and started running around like a maniac (amongst the 400 children) and getting into things she shouldn't (and at one point, violently pushing this man who was video taping his son dancing, out of her way so she could get into a basket of markers) so we decided to make an early exit. As I said before, the tickets were free and we spent well over an hour there so I feel like we got our money's worth.

So, as you can see we've posted a video below. This is the first time we've done this and we're not the most technologically gifted people in the world so we couldn't figure out how to rotate the video and get it to stay that way. Nevertheless, here it is... just turn your head to the side and it's perfect. One last thing... about midway through the video, you will see a little girl's hand enter the screen shot and touch Ellie's arm. Her stare-down of this fellow concert-goer is awesome! She won't have any memories of her first concert, but we'll always have this video to remind her how much she enjoyed it...