Totally worth the 8 hours of driving (and we didn’t even stay for the headliner)

So Saturday night was the much anticipated Neurosonic show in Oklahoma City.

Okay, technically our tickets say "Puddle of Mudd," but whatever. Neurosonic could have been opening for Up With People and I'd have driven to OKC to see them. (And we DEFINITELY wouldn't have stayed for the headliner.)

Anyway, having never been to OKC before (and remembering how it took us two fucking hours driving around Kansas City last year to find the Kemper Arena thanks to Mapquest being a total waste half the time...) we intended to leave at 2pm so that we'd have an extra hour of time to get lost/deal with random catastrophic events/etc before the doors opened. Unfortunately, I kind of stopped taking my Claritin a while back out of just plain old forgetfulness, and by Friday afternoon my sinuses were going haywire. I made the mistake of taking some decongestant cold medicine at work Saturday morning (the "non-drowsy" bit on the box is total bullshit) and hadn't quite slept it off by noon when we were supposed to go to the 'rents for lunch, so I decided to put my makeup on and eat my lunch in the car so I could sleep a while longer and get out from under the medicated stupor. Long story short, we pulled out of the driveway at, oh, something like 2:30, stopped at my Kum & Go to get coffee and gas and such, then realized that I'd forgotten to get cash for the tolls in Oklahoma (and spilled the coffee in the Beetle's floorboard thanks to crappy German cup holders) and had to stop at yet another convenience store before actually leaving the city limits at about 3pm.

Fortunately, the rest of the trip went pretty smooth. Thank you, Oklahoma City, for being infinitely easier to navigate than KC, even when you miss an exit. And Kourt did a really good job driving up -- no real episodes of vehicular claustrophobia or traffic anxiety or anything, not even when we missed that exit.

We arrived at the Diamond Ballroom just after 7, and got in line in front of the loudest, most drunken redneck family I've ever had the pleasure of sharing space with, which was a real treat. At one point the loudest of the loudmouths (who were mostly pissed that they'd had to stand in a second line to get in after standing in a first line to get their tickets from the Will Call window -- um, isn't that how it usually works?) made a loud comment about wanting to shiv the security staff. I hoped they'd get their drunken asses thrown out of the line for that, but they didn't. We lost track of them after we got through the doors. I'm not even sure they made it inside. If not, score one for sanity.

While we wandering around waiting for the festivities to begin, I decided to go check out the Neurosonic merch to see if maybe I had enough cash to buy something after Oklahoma stuck it to us with tolls all afternoon. And what's with a venue that has no credit card machines AND no atm? Huh? Anyway, no luck on getting a shirt or anything, but Jason Darr was running the booth himself so we got our ticket stubs signed and got pics with him and all.

We milled around a little more, and I spotted Shane, so I got a pic with him too, and at that point figured we'd spend the time during the first two bands' sets trying to track down the other two. (Not that the first two bands were bad, but... eh. Note to Airbourne: Climbing up on the amps with no shirt on is really very 1986. Especially if you don't jump once you're up there. Pussy.)

We caught Troy by the bar (who told us to take one of their posters and bring it back after their set to get it signed - so yay!), but Jacen was nowhere to be found. Kourt asked me to describe him so she could be on the lookout, as she's not as up on who's who in the band. I'm horrible at describing people, so the best she got was, "Well, he's like... um... dark hair and it kinda looks like... um... ::random hand gestures:: like hair... and... um... he's got eyes." Let's hope I never get robbed at the Kum & Go, 'cause I'll never be able to give a usable description to the cops.

We'd invited my sister Amy to go with us because I've got her hooked on Neurosonic, too, but she decided that she was too old (which is bull, 'cause she's only 8 years older than me) and too uncool to go to a rock show (whatever) and stayed home to man my shop. As were were standing around we spotted a guy who... well... the only way to do the description any justice is to say that it looked like he'd shown up for a Mötley Crüe show in the mid 80s and just never went home. Sad. So we texted Amy to say (again) that she is totally not too uncool or too old for a rock show and should have totally come with us. And while I was volleying texts back and forth to MO, Kourt started assaulting my arm to let me know she'd spotted Jacen. (She was pretty proud to have figured out it was him all by herself.)

So, now that I was four for four on pics, we just milled around on the edge of the crowd until they started setting up for Neurosonic, and then we started our stealthy moves to the front of the crowd. Unfortunately, we got halted next to somebody with some really bad B.O., and Kourt bailed. I managed to gradually work my way farther in (and out of the cloud of stink), so I had a good spot for the show. Kourt stood out of the way with the poster so it wouldn't get mangled -- and it would have. Some drunk girl decided to take the "flail wildly, face down, at waist level and hope everybody just thinks I tripped or something" approach to getting through the crowd, who of course quickly ejected her back to the perimeter, but not before she made everybody spill their drinks and mangle their cigarettes and generally get pissed off at her. Fun times. Don't know how I managed to make it through the show without getting holes singed into my White and Nerdy hoodie. THAT would have really pissed me off. I love that hoodie.

Anyway, Neurosonic was AWESOME. Totally worth the drive. Kourt's added Darr to the list of celebrities she'd be willing to bear children for. And, okay, I just have to say that Darr grabbing Troy by the hair was one of the hottest things I've ever seen. Rarr. (Maybe I'm just weird like that.) But more importantly, they sounded great and put on a great show and it totally rocked.

So afterwards we went back and got our poster signed. I mentioned that we'd driven four hours just to come see them play, which got us big sweaty hugs from Jacen and Troy.

We did hear the first three songs or so of Puddle of Mudd's set while waiting for Shane to arrive and sign our poster, but by that time Kourt had realized that we'd left the iPod plugged into the cigarette lighter, turned on, and playing in the car, and she didn't want to have to try and find somebody to give us a jump in the post-concert parking lot madness. Plus, we had four hours yet to drive, and that damn daylight savings change. And dinner to stop for. So we left early. What we did hear of Puddle of Mudd sounded really good, though. I'm sure they were great. But I'd seen what I came to see and had rock star sweat in my hair, so I was all good to go.

To sum up, and I know I've said this before in blogs and such but I really mean it... if you haven't heard Neurosonic, go check them out right now. Right this minute. Like, go to their MySpace page or look them up on iTunes or Project Playlist or something. They're fourteen kinds of awesome.

Even if they are from Canada.