Thursday Thirteen #3: Concert DOs and DON'Ts

In the spring of 2004, a number of things just went right that allowed me to actually leave home overnight to attend a concert by 2/3 of my favorite band that a friend of mine put on about seven hours down the road at his church. The 2 of 3 of the current 77s lineup that made it are known as 7&7 Is, or just Mike Roe and Mark Harmon. It was ostensibly a youth event, but the middle-aged fan base had all the serious fun after the kids filed out at their regularly scheduled time.

1. DO make your desires known to God about attending the show after it's announced as you experience a particularly tender moment in prayer about the rather difficult way your life has gone. It won't kill you if He says no, and He just might say, "YES"!

2. DO ask all your friends to pray with you about whether you should go. You'll be amazed how stuff can come together when something is supposed to happen!

3. DO have the biggest bonus you've ever gotten from the company show up two weeks before the show as you're trying to decide if you have enough money to go.

4. DON'T get so wound up in the departure details that you forget to take the bonus check to the bank. It will cost you a bit in overdraft fees later.

5. DO enjoy the trip down in the sweetest ride you've ever owned.


(This isn't the actual item, but is also a very nice black 1989 Buick Skylark.)

6. DO get excited about seeing your cyberfriends in person for the first time. Take them some good teaching materials to help them with the concerns about which you've been posting and praying.

7. DON'T insist on carrying all five of your bags full of books and tapes and your great outfit to your motel room at once because you get there later than you'd planned and are missing part of the pre-show get-together. You may get to see the show with a screaming headache!

8. DO make sure that you get a picture of the fork by the road before you leave, or nobody will believe that it was there.


(Notice that I did say, "The fork BY the road").

9. DO agree to run your buddy's very nice digital camera so that he can battle with the temperamental soundboard, and get as many pictures of the show as possible. Get brave and go right up to the edge of the stage, like you own the place!

10. DO stop shooting long enough to whip out your keys for the traditional multiple-sets-of-keys audience participation sound effects during the intro to "Snake", and to watch some amazing guitar work on the bridges without distraction.

11. DON'T walk in front of the video camera because you're no longer looking where you're going, and have the back of your head needlessly immortalized for posterity.

12. DON'T try to catch another one of your buddies with a camera as he trips and falls in your general direction. The difference in proportions say that you couldn't do anything to help the situation, and he's tough enough to take it.

13. DO somehow manage to sit on the same end of the table with the lead singer at the after-show dinner for the band and serious fans. It will allow you to catch up on prayer request updates, have a good single parent conversation, give him the wind-up dinosaur you brought along for his daughter's dashboard dinosaur collection, and generally serve as another reason to believe that God put you with this cool bunch of people for a purpose.

God sets the lonely in families,
he leads forth the prisoners with singing....(Ps. 68:6a)




Below is a clip from a video taken that night. The song is their version of "Denomination Blues", a song originally released by Washington Phillips in the late 1920s.