Well, I went to the String Jamboree and was a part of Bandfest last week. I like seeing and playing in concerts. It gives me a chance to flex my cynicism muscle.

There are four kinds of kids at school concerts:

1. The kid who decided to eat Sloppy Joes in his concert dress. With some of these kids, I wasn’t sure if they were wearing an outifit or an apron…
2. The kid who forgot to bring his music, stand or clothes.
3. The kid who flies paper airplanes during the concert.
4. The kid who sits still in his clean clothes.

Parents and siblings are also interesting. There are parents who watch the whole thing with a Bluetooth phone in their ear, so that they can conduct a business deal while watching their kids.

“Yes…I think that’ll sell…get a report to me by…Oh my god, my Joe’s drumstick just flew across the Field House!”

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Then there are the parents who are completely fixated on their kids. They go up to a lot of random people and start talking, saying things like:

“Hi, Mandy looks so cute, doesn’t she?”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but have we met?”

If you haven’t, they’ll try to point the kid out to you,

“See there she is, sitting over there with the white shirt and the black pants.”

“Ooh, that really narrows it down.”

As I’ve mentioned before in past posts, brothers and sisters are like seniors to the freshmen. I saw one kid listening to his iPod during the concert. The others showed their complete indifference in the classic ways, drawing, running around, and texting.

Don’t feel bad if you missed the concerts. Just find any kid who performed there and ask their parent for the video. Both concerts were filmed from about 150 different angles. Each of them trains the camera on their kids alone.

“I’m going to be able to see Jake play the triangle forever!”

All joking aside, the concerts were really great. I really love seeing the kids play, and they sounded awesome. I hope that they keep it up.

Tune in next week for a new blog,

Andy