Today, T. and I took the train to TD Garden to see Lennon Stella / 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS) / The Chainsmokers.
In theory, the sitter was supposed to swap her normal Thursday with A. for her normal Friday with T., since I had T. with me. This worked well this week, because A. had her first swim lesson (which went well, so hopefully we will do that indefinitely). However, the whole week has been a little screwy, and no day since Monday has been normal: T. was supposed to have a swim lesson on Wednesday (he did not), date night was Wednesday, etc. Unsurprisingly, altho somewhat disappointingly, the sitter did not show up on Friday. She was fine; it was just confusion. She had it in her head that A. would not want to go out on Friday (not necessarily a relevant consideration, imo, since I wanted R. to have that time to work on taxes). Which is true!
Anyway.
We caught the 3:3x train. T. thought (he has done this before) that 1630 am mentioned on a sign was a time, not realizing it was a radio station. I explained a little about that and he wanted to know what it stood for. I could remember that FM was frequency modulation, but he had to look up AM to get amplitude. Once I had that piece, I could roughly explain the difference between the two. This attracted the attention of a young man on the opposite platform; we had an enjoyable convo (well, enjoyable for us! Probably less so for everyone else waiting for a train and stuck listening to a cross-track discussion of aviation maintenance (that is what he does, apparently, and I now know a bunch of moderately useful things about how that works, which fits well with things I have read over the years in the wake of crashes and scandals).
We had an uneventful ride in. Because T. is now bigger than me, I never get the kid rides free offer; no big deal there, I got it a solid year longer than I really should have. We went to Boston Beer Works and had dinner. I just ordered the fun size burger rather than even trying to order anything else, because nothing else ever works anyway. I had a couple manhattans — the first one came out with a cherry and a twist; the second one came out on the rocks. Both were fine. I wish they still had the Woodworks, which was a fantastic drink, but so it goes!
We got to our seats. We bought T. a t-shirt. He got popcorn. Lennon Stella was fine. 5SOS was excellent. The Chainsmokers talked up their tour pretty hard, and I was wondering how this show would compare to the last time we saw them. Wow. They spent all their money on Random Epic Shit a la Japanese bar. They had a steel ball cage with 3 motorcycles and 2 decorative women in it at one point. Amazing. The drummer on the elevated platform mid - runway with the flaming (literally: on fire) drumsticks was fantastic.
They rainbow glitter bombed the runway at the end of the show. There was no encore. I approve, altho I could have wished that they had ended it a little earlier and we could have caught the 10:4x, but honestly, it was worth it to stay for the last 20 minutes.
The above effects are all in addition to the usual lights, lasers, fog, smoke, flame, large video screens, etc. that one comes to expect at a large arena rock show. I do not think this was as good as a P!nk show, but it was damn close. P!nk, of course, is less random epic, and more thematic, and Demi Lovato has full on operatic stuff going on. That is great; The Chainsmokers are just leaving their best life, being slightly doofy young men and spending all of the money appropriately, which is to say, on crazy stuff that looks vaguely like it escaped from a Twenty-One Pilots Show, except with all the darkness sanded off and the crazy expanded upon.
I got another drink; I found a bar that served Bulleit Rye and had it with club soda. I was last in line — I am terrible at picking lines at shows. Not just at shows! Never get in line behind me; I picked the slow line, everywhere I go. Anyway. The guy serving asked me what my favorite bourbon was, which took a minute to process because I had just ordered a rye. We had a nice little chat about favorite whiskeys.
It was low 50s by the time we got home at 1 in the morning; I was really happy I had driven to the train station so I did not have to job home with inadequate clothing. I put on the long sleeved T T. had bought, which, as an adult large, actually sort of fit.
In theory, the sitter was supposed to swap her normal Thursday with A. for her normal Friday with T., since I had T. with me. This worked well this week, because A. had her first swim lesson (which went well, so hopefully we will do that indefinitely). However, the whole week has been a little screwy, and no day since Monday has been normal: T. was supposed to have a swim lesson on Wednesday (he did not), date night was Wednesday, etc. Unsurprisingly, altho somewhat disappointingly, the sitter did not show up on Friday. She was fine; it was just confusion. She had it in her head that A. would not want to go out on Friday (not necessarily a relevant consideration, imo, since I wanted R. to have that time to work on taxes). Which is true!
Anyway.
We caught the 3:3x train. T. thought (he has done this before) that 1630 am mentioned on a sign was a time, not realizing it was a radio station. I explained a little about that and he wanted to know what it stood for. I could remember that FM was frequency modulation, but he had to look up AM to get amplitude. Once I had that piece, I could roughly explain the difference between the two. This attracted the attention of a young man on the opposite platform; we had an enjoyable convo (well, enjoyable for us! Probably less so for everyone else waiting for a train and stuck listening to a cross-track discussion of aviation maintenance (that is what he does, apparently, and I now know a bunch of moderately useful things about how that works, which fits well with things I have read over the years in the wake of crashes and scandals).
We had an uneventful ride in. Because T. is now bigger than me, I never get the kid rides free offer; no big deal there, I got it a solid year longer than I really should have. We went to Boston Beer Works and had dinner. I just ordered the fun size burger rather than even trying to order anything else, because nothing else ever works anyway. I had a couple manhattans — the first one came out with a cherry and a twist; the second one came out on the rocks. Both were fine. I wish they still had the Woodworks, which was a fantastic drink, but so it goes!
We got to our seats. We bought T. a t-shirt. He got popcorn. Lennon Stella was fine. 5SOS was excellent. The Chainsmokers talked up their tour pretty hard, and I was wondering how this show would compare to the last time we saw them. Wow. They spent all their money on Random Epic Shit a la Japanese bar. They had a steel ball cage with 3 motorcycles and 2 decorative women in it at one point. Amazing. The drummer on the elevated platform mid - runway with the flaming (literally: on fire) drumsticks was fantastic.
They rainbow glitter bombed the runway at the end of the show. There was no encore. I approve, altho I could have wished that they had ended it a little earlier and we could have caught the 10:4x, but honestly, it was worth it to stay for the last 20 minutes.
The above effects are all in addition to the usual lights, lasers, fog, smoke, flame, large video screens, etc. that one comes to expect at a large arena rock show. I do not think this was as good as a P!nk show, but it was damn close. P!nk, of course, is less random epic, and more thematic, and Demi Lovato has full on operatic stuff going on. That is great; The Chainsmokers are just leaving their best life, being slightly doofy young men and spending all of the money appropriately, which is to say, on crazy stuff that looks vaguely like it escaped from a Twenty-One Pilots Show, except with all the darkness sanded off and the crazy expanded upon.
I got another drink; I found a bar that served Bulleit Rye and had it with club soda. I was last in line — I am terrible at picking lines at shows. Not just at shows! Never get in line behind me; I picked the slow line, everywhere I go. Anyway. The guy serving asked me what my favorite bourbon was, which took a minute to process because I had just ordered a rye. We had a nice little chat about favorite whiskeys.
It was low 50s by the time we got home at 1 in the morning; I was really happy I had driven to the train station so I did not have to job home with inadequate clothing. I put on the long sleeved T T. had bought, which, as an adult large, actually sort of fit.