The Showbox and the Rock Box, that is.  Here’s what I learned recently from each:

The most obvious thing I learned from the Rock Box was that I should have gone there much sooner. It is a music lover’s dream – individual, various-sized karaoke rooms, with food and beverage service while you sing.  I do not have a good singing voice except when alone in my car, and therefore do not often feel the pull of a karaoke microphone. I had done karaoke exactly one time, in college, and my inebriated trio’s rendition of Devo’s “Whip It” was so loud and awful that the karaoke guy turned our mic off.  But now I’m older and wiser, and on this October night, in the company of a small group of girlfriends and armed with a tablet device that gave us access to any song I could think of, I found my inner karaoke goddess. Our group sampled nearly every musical genre, from show tunes to rap, 1970’s to present day, and I had a blast.  Three lessons from the Rock Box night:

1.  I don’t know all the words to Naughty By Nature’s “OPP” like I thought I did;
2.  Journey is really hard to sing.  Kenny Rogers is not; and
3.  “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is just as fun to yell now as it was 20 years ago.

A few nights later, the stars aligned – both kids had sleepovers away from home, and Portland band Blind Pilot was playing a gig at the Showbox.  I surprised my husband with tickets and a night out.   Blind Pilot is a current favorite of his, and we’ve never seen them live before, so this promised to be a good time.  Blind Pilot is what I call kitchen music…music to listen to while I am making dinner. It’s melodic, unobtrusive, easily digested. Surely their live show would be the same.

We had appetizers and cocktails at a bar, while we strategized about Halloween costumes for our friends’ annual party.  We talked about the kids; we talked about college football.  It was all so easy and in synch….we moseyed over to the Showbox and staked out our spot, and watched a few opening bands before Blind Pilot came on. The show had a great vibe, and they proved to be just as enjoyable as I had predicted. I got my Concert Moment, when they closed with one of my favorite songs, “Three Rounds and a Sound”, which, especially on this night, is a life-affirming tune. Here were my takeaways from the evening:

1. I might be too old to attend shows that don’t start until 11:30pm.
2. People really need to stop groping each other and playing grab-ass at concerts. Seriously. (possibly another sign that I am getting old).

The third thing, though, and really the most important, is that the next time someone asks me, “Why are you like that?” in relation to my concert-going habits, I will now have a better answer.

I recently fielded that question across a dinner table, and the answer was so simple that it eluded me at the time. Now I know that my answer should be – because I want to have nights like this.  I am “like that” because, after I go to a show, the memory is mine.  It gets woven into my musical history.  It is burned into my soul and into my heart.  So that now, in my kitchen on a random Tuesday night, I get to hear this song and remember a great night out with my sweetie, who is still, after all these years, my favorite concert companion.

(Or, as Blind Pilot would put it:  “‘Till kingdom come, you’re the one I want”.)  Indeed.