Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom – Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker

My husband and I went to see The B52’s last night. As far as date nights go, this was a great one. We stopped to eat on the way to the show at Margarita’s. I got a Blood Orange Margarita, and it was AWESOME. Note: There is no photo of the margarita because, sadly, I forgot my phone in the car and I my husband thought I couldn’t go the duration of the meal without it, so of course I had to prove him wrong. 🙂

Anyway, The show was great.

Except for the opening band, which was meh, therefore they shall remain nameless.

The show start time was 8:00pm, but The B52’s didn’t come out until 9:15pm. By then, it was pretty hot in there. Fred (one of the lead singers, for the uninitiated) made note of this, and then disappeared for a few songs. We thought we’d lost him, but the ceiling fans came on and thankfully, Fred came back out.

The played most of my favorite songs, including “Roam“, and “Deadbeat Club“, which is my current favorite.

They did an encore of three songs: “Planet Claire“, some song I never heard of with a telephone number in it, and (finally! finally!) “Rock Lobster“.

When they played “Dance This Mess Around“, and I was, you know, doing that, I had a moment when I realized that I was doing this same exact thing about 35 years ago. I was singing at the top of my lungs, dancing, and throwing my hands in the air like I just didn’t care (nod to Cameo‘s song), at some club in Boston that I can’t recall the name of. It was a glimpse of how it is to live in Einstein Time, and it frikkin’ rocked.

I had so much fun (as I talked about my Metaphysical Monday video this week)! The best part? The B52’s were having so much fun too! We’ve all heard of bands that are not in love with the idea of playing the same songs over and over, the “fan favorites”, at their concerts, but this band didn’t get that memo.

If you ever have the chance to see them live, GO!

This is the best photo my iPhone could get of them, and it’s awful, but it’s all I have, so I’m posting it here at the end.

You know how they say that your tastes change as you get older? I have found this to be true in my own life.

I never liked cheese on my pizza. When I was little, maybe 4 or 5 years old, my parents used to scrape it off (and onto their own slices, I imagine) and tell me that they got some cheese-less pizza, “special” for me. That changed by the time I got to high school, when I ordered my pizza with ‘extra cheese’, just like everyone else.
I never liked seafood. With the exception of canned tuna (white, tuna, in water), and the odd clam strip filched from Dad’s plate once a year when we ate out at HoJo’s, nary a fish crossed my plate…for years. I didn’t start eating (fried only) seafood until I moved to Maine because, you know, it’s the law.
Melted American cheese. No, wait, I still hate that.

To approach this from the standpoint of musical tastes, I also have undergone a transformation. Back in the day, I liked The Cars. The Motels. Face to Face. Fleetwood Mac. Still do.

I didn’t like Kiss. Def Leppard. Guns N’ Roses. Headbanger music is what I called it. Poison. Motley Crew…and Cheap Trick. As my grandmother would say, I ‘had no use for them’.

Then I met my husband. The first time I got in his jeep and heard what he was listening to on the radio, I knew that we had, um, widely different tastes in music. I was a Kiss 108 kind of girl. He was an FNX (listen to it? I’d never even heard of it) kind of guy.

We met in the middle with John Mellencamp and Bon Jovi and made the best of it. I didn’t make him listen to my music and he didn’t make me listen to his.

Then Cheap Trick (did I mention that’s my husband’s favorite band?) came to town.

(to be continued…)