My List is Surely Shorter Than Your List

The Rodrigo y Gabriela concert was fabulous. It’s amazing what a sound system and flashing lights will do to music — especially a guitar duo. When you listen to their recorded music, you can imagine it being played in a small room. But on stage! It’s a whole nother beast.

Driving up to Minneapolis, I began to list all the concerts I have been to in my life. The list felt pitifully short (I didn’t go see a concert until I was in college). Over a delicious tapas dinner (and entire bottle of wine) before the show, the Consort helped me remember a few other concerts we had seen. I am posting it here because this blog has become my backup memory — and these are not in strict chronological order, mind you.

• Sting (at some huge sportsplex in the DC area)
• They Might Be Giants (at the Bayou [ah, the Bayou!] in DC)
• The Fixx (again, at the Bayou)
• WHFS-tival, with King Missile and lots of other early 1990s bands (somewhere in Maryland, outside of DC)
• They Might Be Giants (at a small club in San Francisco)(I *know*! Twice — and we like them, but not THAT much; although they do put on a good show)
• The Indigo Girls (at some outdoor amphitheater in Berkeley)
• The Spin Doctors (with Soul Asylum [*I* say, the Consort says it wasn’t Soul Asylum, but I’m pretty sure; we need to check this with the friends we went to the concert with]; at the Bay Area Six Flags)
• Tori Amos (at an intimate theater space in San Francisco)
• Yonder Mountain String Band (with Cornmeal; at Des Moines’ Simon Estes Amphitheater)
• Suzanne Vega (in a small theater in New Hampshire)
• Natalie MacMaster (in a small theater in Vermont)
• Rodrigo y Gabriela (in Minneapolis)

I think that’s it. My sister invited us to go see Nine Inch Nails in California, but Impera was still a baby and I was just too tired to even consider it (which was a killer because *I* was the one to introduce my sisters to NIN). And to think there’s a meme going around on Facebook of “My Top 50 Favorite Concerts”. Golly!