It just so happened that I had another concert gift for my wife that hit again this week: Ed Sheeran. We decided to Uber instead of drive and holy Toledo, was that much better than driving and paying for parking and screaming obscenities at strangers (at least from the car). James Blunt was the opener and I knew one song of his, which I don’t really care for, but he was up to it and put on a good show with a lot of energy. I still can’t name any of his songs except that one I mentioned earlier.
The real show began between the acts. Some young guy, a lanky, goofy bastard, sat down next to me and stomped when he laughed. He laughed a lot. I planned on punching him, until I heard the guy behind me. Some upper 40’s loudmouth saying things like, “Well, I slept with her and it was fine, but I didn’t see it progressing.” He was telling another woman this. Smooth. At one point, he said to her, “I really didn’t see myself marrying her.” I leaned over to my wife and said, “She probably didn’t see herself marrying him either.” I think he heard me, because he shut up, which is what I had hoped for. Then across the aisle, some young girl got up over 9 times, I noticed because she was squirming through the railing that said not to lean on it. She wasn’t drinking, so I can only guess she had early onset restless leg or the runs. Turns out she was trying to sneak a friend down close and got busted.
Ed Sheeran came out, and to my surprise, he played the whole concert alone, save one song, all on guitar. He was looping riffs on his foot pedal and was quite impressive, especially overcoming his disability – being a ginger, that is. I knew about six of his songs because my lady played a lot of his stuff to help our daughter sleep. Between him and James Blunt being British, I understood about 1/3rd of their dialogue between songs, but I had a $10 Bud Light, so I really didn’t care about anything other than trying to figure out how to get in on that racket. He did play “I See Fire” from the Hobbit movie, so I was satisfied and in the mood to fight a dragon, but alas, none appeared. Back to my extra fancy Bud Light, but I’m watching for you, Smaug.