Thinking Pink

Being a child of rock and roll, I've been to my fair share of ear-pounding, earth-shaking musical events. While I was never into heavy metal or anything that might possibly be responsible for any impending hearing loss (although it would be a lot cooler to blame it on prolonged exposure to AC/DC or Aerosmith), I was quite the regular concert goer back in the days of Billy Joel and Elton John. Oh, sure, as I got older I threw in a couple of side-trips to see Vince Gill and Reba McEntire but that was only after my daughter came along. Before she forced me to appreciate country, I was strictly a rock and roll girl.

I have to admit I haven't been to a concert in quite some time (unless you want to count those hours spent sitting on the lawn at Septemberfest listening to Heart or hanging out at The Last Fling and catching Rick Springfield's 8,478th rendition of "Jessie's Girl). The closest I've come, celebrating my hubby's birthday with Ravinia tickets to see Diana Krall, was a couple of years ago and that could hardly be mistaken for a rock concert.

Tomorrow, I'm going to change all that. Tomorrow, I'm going to make up for my concert absence with a vengeance. I'm going to accompany my daughter to a Pink concert. We've had the tickets for months (and probably paid more for them than I did for all my Billy Joel tickets) and now I've got another chance to relive my rock and roll days one more time.

I like Pink. I think she's smart, funny and writes clever, insightful lyrics. And just because she's more of an edgy bad-ass than I ever could have been, it doesn't make me appreciate her musical abilities any less. There's just one problem. It's one thing to listen to someone's CDs or download their music onto my MP3 player; it's another to brave the traffic and head into the city with twenty-thousand fans young enough to be my grandchildren to listen to someone put on a show with an end time that's way past my curfew.

But, I've decided I'm up for the challenge. I'm going to get out of the house on a Tuesday night. I'm going to get the chance to hang out with my girl for a few hours and I'm going to take the opportunity to remind her what a cool, relevant mom she has.

I just hope she doesn't notice the earplugs.