62. June 5th, 2010 Picture

Last Saturday, my friends Erin, Jen and I went to Gillette Stadium to see Taylor Swift in concert.  We bought the tickets ages ago, before I had grown tired of most of her songs, but was still excited to see her perform.  I had seen her open for Rascal Flatts a few years ago, and was impressed by her energy, so I was interested to see how her headlining tour would go.  She won Entertainer of the Year this past year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, which is the highest honor, and I needed to see if she was worthy of the title.  Because obviously, my opinion is the only one that counts for anything in this world.  I have seen a lot of concerts in my lifetime and have high expectations after seeing Kenny Chesney 4 times, plus numerous others, like 'N Sync 7 times, but who is really counting?

Jen, Erin and I left Southie at 2pm, hoping to skip some of the traffic, find a great spot and grab something to eat at one of the new restaurants at Patriot Place.  We thought there would be a lot of traffic getting down to Gillette, since there was a concert at the Comcast Center that day as well, but we zipped right there.  Before we knew it we were parked in one of the better lots that is known for getting cars out quick after shows, and walking towards Bar Louie for a drink and some food.  We got to the restaurant and it was pretty quiet, so we got a great high top in the bar area, and not so great service.  We were there for hours, since the show didn't start until 6pm, and by the time we were paying the check the place was packed and there was an hour and a half wait.

The weather looked iffy, with scattered thunderstorms and even tornado warnings, so I needed to grab a poncho at nearby EMS.  I had an umbrella and a jacket, but thought that a poncho might serve me better if there was wind.  I walked to a display and grab a poncho whose package said 'big enough for 2 people'.  We all got a laugh out of this, plus the picture on the box has 2 sad looking people huddled the bright orange poncho.  We joked how they shouldn't be so unhappy since they were dry, and were extremely excited to crack the box open and see what exactly a large/grande poncho made for  2 people would look like.  We laughed all the way through paying, and made our way in to the stadium.

After walking up a never ending ramp and countless stairs that left us in pain and gasping for air, we finally reached our seats, which were one row away from the complete end of the stadium.  I guess this is what $45 will get out nowadays.  The show started soon after and Gloriana opened up.  I love them and had actually seen them in a private show at the Hard Rock Cafe downtown a few months ago and got to meet them, so I love them even more than before.  The sound was kind of shaky but I guess that's what happens when you are the first act on.  Kellie Pickler came on after and knocked it out of the park.  Both Erin and I love her and were so excited to see her perform.  We both agree that she was the best of the entire show, she is truly talented.  After Kellie, Justin Bieber performed, which was a last minute addition to the line up.  After he sang, we all agreed that we had Bieber Fever.  He was really great and sang live while dancing, which I feel is impressive today, since most people lip sync.   Quick shot of the 3 of us:

It started to drizzle so I whipped out my poncho, ready to cover the entire row in bright orange plastic.  Once opened, all 3 of us put it over our laps like a blanket to figure out exactly how it worked.  The material was more shiny than I thought it'd be and we compared it to the blankets they pass out to runners after they finish a marathon.  I took pictures of the NASA symbol on the front, since we thought it was weird that they needed NASA's help to make a poncho, and broke into cackles of laughter at the warning BE SAFE stamped all across the front.  What the heck is up with this poncho?  It's JUST a poncho, no need for safety warnings or NASA plugs.  Jen started running her hands along the bottom looking for the head and we couldn't find it.  Maybe it's just a rain tarp and we're supposed to hold it above our heads, we thought.  I pulled out the packaging again to read the directions, yes, I was looking up the directions to a poncho, when I saw that it was not in fact a poncho, but an emergency blanket.  Across the front were words like WATERPROOF (which I again thought was weird to print on poncho packaging, yet still no red flags went up), RETAINS 90% OF BODY HEAT (it was 95 degrees that day!  Who needs to retain any body heat??), and ADVENTURE MEDICAL KITS.  We had all looked at the packaging in both the store and stadium.  We exhausted talk of ponchos and rain in front of the cashier at EMS, yet she never alerted us to the fact that it.was.not.a.poncho.  I took pictures of the package before even opening it, just to document the awesomeness of a 2 person poncho.  Even when OPENED, staring at BE SAFE and NASA, no one even imagined it was anything else.  We were so hysterical at our own stupidity that the laughter caught on and before we knew it our row had the giggles.  The woman next to me was gasping for air as her 10 year old daughter was asking what was wrong.  We had tears streaming down our face and pains in our chest because we were just plain old idiots.

{Just documenting how miserable the 2 people in the picture looked.  I mean, why so glum, you're dry aren't you?  And you're in the most  awesomeness of awesome ponchos, you should be so HAPPY!  Little did I know the were unhappy because they needed a survival blanket. }

{Just another run of the mill poncho made from certified space technology.  Casual.}

{STILL no one realized that this wasn't a poncho.}

{Erin modeling the cool silver side.  This is the greatest poncho EVER!'}

{Ohhhhhh, I'm an idiot.  And for the record, in the 10 seconds it took for this picture to be taken, I started sweating profusely.  The packaging does not lie, it does retain 90% of your body heat.  They weren't joking.}

Thankfully the few stray rain drops were all we got for the night, so I could put the faux poncho away.  Taylor Swift came out shortly after this debacle, and I was underwhelmed.   She took 1 million dramatic pauses and really loved to swagger and flip her hair.  She was so dramatic it was almost campy, and I didn't love it.  She also got uber preachy, and warned the boys in the audience that if you don't want a song written about you then you should do bad things.  Hi Taylor, some guys are awful and I don't need a 20 year old to tell me that.  Call me when your hearts been broken, then maybe we can have an adult conversation.  You know, one that doesn't include the word fairytale.

All in all, I guess I'm glad I went.  I got to see Gloriana, Kellie and Justin and laugh myself into hiccups over a poncho, which was worth the $45 in my opinion.  I could have done without Taylor and stick to my feelings that she does not deserve the title of Entertainer of the Year.  I've seen better performances on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, which by the way is the BEST of the Housewives series.  Mark it.