School of Rock

My weekend seemed like it was weeks long. And yet I was still grumpy when it was over. What an ingrate.

On Saturday night, BioGirl, Nordic Boy and I went to see a rock show put on by the students at Seattle's School of Rock. If your town has a School of Rock (and many towns do, I have discovered), you need to get yourself to one of their shows as soon as possible. It was AWESOME. While there, we saw the following:

1. Kids just, um, rocking out. These kids were good. Hella good. I have heard many a band in my day (did I just say "in my day"? Why I believe I did), full of adults who call themselves professional musicians but, compared to these kids, sucked dingus.

2. A little 8-year-old girl with Princess Leia hair, belting out "Why You'd Want to Live Here" by Death Cab in a most delightful way, and then double-belting out "Outshined" by Soundgarden. Woo she was good.

3. Eric Corson from The Long Winters came out and sang a song with the kids. How cool is that for them?

4. A bunch of adults who came in with an all-too-familiar (to me, having been a librarian for teens) condescension for the kids ("won't this be a CUTE show...") get schooled on rocking out. They had to be taken seriously for playing like that. I loved it.

5. For all the respect they earned and got, some of them also got a healthy (and awesome) dose of embarrassment-inducing behavior from parents. One in particular. There was this lady who was standing right in front of us, and whenever there was a pause between songs, and the crowd stopped clapping and hooting and hollering for a second, she would wait for just that moment of quiet to scream out her daughter's name in the most mom-like manner. "Megan!!!!" she would yell. "I love you!" And then she would flap both of her hands over her head in the biggest wave you have ever seen, as if she were not only waving hello but also fanning the entire stage like a human air conditioner. She did this the entire show, and waved ever harder in confusion over the fact that Megan didn't seem to hear her ear-splitting love. Megan was not making eye contact, can you believe it? But still, Megan's mom was determined and never gave up. Her yells became a song in and of themselves. On the way home, BioGirl and I broke out with a good old chorus of "Megan!!!! I love you!!!!" much like a tune we couldn't get out of our heads. And Nordic Boy ignored us, so maybe that is just the affect that that song has on people.