Today was Buffett Day. Allison and I went early with a group of my friends and co-workers. We met at the Stop & Shop in Mansfield to round up the cars and caravan into the parking lot. The Mansfield Stop & Shop knows when Buffett is in town. They had a Tiki themed concession stand out in front of the store where you could get your last minute grass skirts and other items. The Liquor store had a sale on Corona 12 packs. Yep they knew that Buffett was in town.
Once the crew arrived, nine cars, we formed up ranks and drove into the parking lot. We had a four-car width to spread out all our stuff. The folks we were with did not screw around when it came to set up. Within five minutes we had two tents up and four tables, a ton of food, tons of chairs and liberal flowing of libations.
We brought three coolers including, a Styrofoam one and two real coolers. I broke that in the span of the first five minutes. I dropped a chair right on it in my haste to unload the car. That is okay I was able to salvage most of the ice and the contents we moved to Meghan’s cooler. She has a great cooler. An ice cube is what they call it and it can hold a goodly amount of foodstuffs.
With the party getting in full gear I took out my drink called the Pink ——. It is made with Superior Rum, Malibu Rum, Pineapple Juice, and two packets of sugar, a glass rimmed with lime and sugar and a splash of grenadine. It is a very tasty drink that I learned of while in working at a Trade show in North Carolina. I had a glass of that, some of Jim’s Jungle Juice and it was time to go and see what other people where doing on their own Salty Pieces of Land.
At a Jimmy Buffett concert the best part is almost always the parking lot. There are so many interesting people and if you are in a good mood they give you free drinks. I was given many glasses of homemade concoctions that had a piratical theme. I had on my cowboy hat and my eye patch (over my glasses, I still had to see) and I was ready for a good time. Hanging with friends like Peter, Betsy, Meghan and Jessica and of course Allison made for a very fun afternoon. We played the homemade games, took shots off of ice luges and headed for the RV Park. For some reason the RV Park seemed smaller than ever before but maybe that was because it was a Thursday. This was my first Thursday show ever. There were spin the wheel games, a shot competition and even a fully functioning tire swing.
Well I had myself a very good time, some say too good a time because all those drinks and one hot dog caught up with me. After a quick parking lot purge (I had to do it) I felt 100% better and was back to being completely sober. This is what happens to me, I drink in the parking lot and am stone cold sober by the time the show rolls around. I have not gotten sick before, so there’s a first, Whoop De Doo. But I handled it much better than many of the other people I saw. The girl sitting in the front seat of her boyfriend’s truck puking every two minutes like clockwork for about a ½ hour was particularly gross. She did not make it into the concert. There was one guy who was passed out in a canvas chair and his head was mere inches from the ground. He most likely missed the show.
After our field trip was came back to base camp and fire up the grills. I purchased a Weber Smokey Joe at Stop and Shop because it and a bag of cowboy lump charcoal was $10.00. All summer cookout stuff was 75% off. I wasn’t going to pass up that deal. I also brought with me the Q grill that I bought a year or so ago. Of the two grills the Q performed like a champ. I wonder who has that now… I left it out and intended it to find a new home. I had been very disappointed in that purchase and rather than throw it away I left it for someone to make use of it. Smokey Joe did not do so well and that was my fault because I did not let the coals fire up enough. I’m pretty sure I was not totally sober when I was lighting that thing. Smokey went home with Peter because we had no room in the car.
Mom and Dad were at the show, too. This was their first time and, for the most part, they liked it. My Dad is like me; we have a similar temperament. I guess their car needed to be jumped and he asked around for anyone with jumper cables. He asked this guy next to him, who was having the best time while grilling, “Do you have jumper cables?†and then guy said, “I don’t know, ask someone else.†Ahh… someone had the Buffett spirit. They finally did get a jump from some nice folks on their other side so they were okay to get out later. Mom and Dad met up with us as they were touring the parking lot. They were prepared people, too, they had ponchos.
Then came the rain. And rain it did, over and over. It poured and we were lucky to have the tents. I also had my giant umbrella from work and I used it to keep the food on the table in the middle from becoming too water logged. It would pour, then clear up and then pour some more. I guess I opened and closed the umbrella one too many times because I broke one of the struts on the inside. Not too happy about that. Our group was huddled under the two tents and we tried to wait till the rain stopped before going in but we were unsuccessful.
So then we went into the show. I still had two tickets that we could not even give away. As I was walking over I met up with my parents and Dad and I stood outside the gates trying to sell the last two tickets. So picture this, There are at least 4 people standing in the same general area saying, “Tickets,†“Need Tickets?†and various sayings like that. I stand there holding my two tickets up. Some guy from Tweeter Center comes up to me and says that I cannot sell my tickets. Mind you that I am not saying anything, I just have my tickets in my hand. I guess that this guy was more visual than audio. Jackass. But I was not going to become confrontational so I put my tickets away till he left (he never did say anything to anyone else.) and tried again. No takers. I couldn’t believe that no one wanted tickets, but no one was buying. Some other people in our group tried to sell their extra tickets too and no deal either.
Once inside the concert I stopped and bought some earplugs. I do this every year. I bring earplugs with me and end up buying them at the show because I always leave them in the car. Great planning ahead!
The concert was nice, we had reserved lawn seats and the people around us were not totally obnoxious and I was not being pushed around by drunken idiots who show up late and expect to get to the front of the lawn. I had room to move and room to enjoy myself. The only problem I had with this concert was that I was completely soaked from head to toe. It poured all through the first half of the show and we were soaked. Allison was smart and asked my to buy her a long sleeve shirt (a yearly tradition). She tucked that under her clothes and when the rain was done she had a dry top to put on. My parents had ponchos so they were okay.
Jimmy played many of the old favorites with some songs from his upcoming album mixed in. He had the Coral Reefers with him and no major surprises. The concert was fun but for the most part standard Jimmy fare. He buzzed the parking lot in his seaplane before the show and he had the parking lot footage rolling during Changes in Latitudes. Standard stuff, but fun nonetheless. As the night progressed I was able to spread out more and more so I liked having the extra room. People kept leaving in our section. When we were leaving at the end after the finales we were pretty much the only people in our row.
If I never hear another idiot start mooing during the walk out of a concert it will be too soon. And it is always started by some punk jerk that thinks he was the first one to ever think of this. I don’t even think it was funny the real first time ever. But we got out without
incident and back to the cars, many of our group was already gone but Peter, Betsy, Allison and I finished cleaning up a few more things. I gave Peter Smokey Joe to take home because we had no room in the car. We were packed for the whole weekend; we are very busy this weekend, which was a god thing because I ended up changing into at least 3 shirts during the course of the day. My sneakers will not be dry till next Buffett show but that’s fine for now. We were able to wash all our clothes at the Cape. We ended up driving right to the Cape after the show and we got here last night at 1:00am. We were wiped out so, no late night blogging for me.
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