A good surprise

This morning I drove the short distance from Oklahoma City to Tulsa.

As I was checking into the Aloft Tulsa downtown , I heard the person in front of me discussing a concert with the woman behind the desk. I curiously asked who was playing. The answer blew my socks off - Springsteen. Seriously? Who could have possibly predicted. Turns out his 2023 tour had a stop at the arena down the street from the hotel.

Understand that I have, never in my life, attended a rock concert. Plenty of classical concerts, but no big venue rock concerts. I assumed it would be sold out, but no, plenty of tickets were still available. Ranging in price from $7.00 (yes the decimal is in the right place) to over $10,000. There are very few performers that would motivate me to make this leap, but - well - The Boss . He is a one of a few poets of my generation. I decided to make it an experience. I chose a price point that I thought was reasonable, knowing that it put me in the third balcony to the side of the stage. Front row, but still nosebleed seats.

I ended up sitting next to Pat and Kelly. Turns out that Kelly was born and spent her early years in Mountain View, CA. I recently heard a possible explanation for the fact that travelers frequently run into other travelers with whom they have some connection. It is simply that the percentage of people who travel, even more so internationally, is so small that the odds of random meetings are increased well over what might be expected if one considered the 8 billion souls currently residing on this planet. Kelly and Pat drove in from Arkansas, where Pat works as a Pastor. Kelly works for an engineering firm. They were fun seat partners and gave me some great tips on attractions in Arkansas.

As is well-known that, even at age 73, Springsteen puts on a an energetic and looooonnnng performance. He started 15 minutes late, at 7:45. A fan shared with me that the show was to comprise 25 songs and 6 encores and to last at least 3 hours. I lasted two and half hours, then decided to call it a night. Even with earplugs (which lowered the volume to a tolerable level) the constant bass was still exhausting. And the acoustics in the arena were, in my opinion, not great. Lots of musical distortion and most of the lyrics were - at least to me - unintelligible. I was mostly disappointed that I missed Born in the U.S.A, which, of course, is an anthem of my generation. I have to imagine that it was probably the last encore, which would have put it around 11 PM. Still, it was definitely an experience to see The Boss in a live show and I am glad I decided to take advantage of the opportunity.