What's My Age Again?

Wright and I have a funny connection with the band Blink 182. It goes back to Wright being a 16 year old growing up in Florida, who loved wakeboarding and punk rock bands. One of his favorite bands, Blink 182, was little known outside of the punk rock circuit, but had put out a few albums and young Wright had gathered up his friends to drive to Ft. Lauderdale to see them play for a group of 300 teenagers like himself. Soon after, however, Wright gave up his love for this band when they "sold out" with more pop-ish music and ended up becoming famous, with videos on TRL and 12-year-old girls -- here's where I enter the story -- buying their CDs and thinking they were oh so cool. I, the 12-year-old girl from the suburbs, was exactly who Wright blamed for ruining his favorite band.

Long story short, I do in fact own two of their CDs (well, they are somewhere in my old bedroom) and Wright still smiles when he hears the songs he used to love so much. So yesterday afternoon, Wright was skimming through Time Out New York and saw that Blink 182 was playing at Madison Square Garden that evening. He was instantly sold. I was not.

Come 8:15 pm, I was desperately trying to ward off the inevitable. We roasted a full chicken for dinner and it still didn't deter him. Finally, I sent him off into the night to see if he could find a deal on two tickets through a scalper, and then, and only then, could he call me and I would get in a cab and meet him there. Twenty minutes later, I found myself watching one of the Fall Out Boy band members getting his head shaved during the last song of their opening set. I was in for it.

To paint a little picture: The Garden was packed. Sold out and filled with 12 to 16 year olds in skinny jeans, black converse sneakers with neon laces, and Blink 182 and/or Fall Out Boy tshirts. I was in loafers, skinny jeans (1 point?), a white oxford and a blazer. And halfway through the concert - while plugging my ears due to the unbelievably loud music/crowd - I realized I had pearl earrings in as well. This is a true story.

Once Blink 182 got going, it really was a pretty fun show. I knew about 5 songs, Wright knew about 6 (apparently they've released a few new albums - every time we'd look at each other quizzically, the audience would be singing the loudest). But the songs we knew were really fun, and they even played two songs from those early albums that Wright loved so much.

There were three major accomplishments:
1. The encore was fantastic - highlighed by the drummer, Travis, going wild while he and his drum set were lifted into the air and twirled around the room, at one point even being turned horizontal!
2. Wright decided he'd done something very unique: seen Blink 182 both at age 16 and age 26.
3. The ultimate: I got to sing along to "nobody likes you when you're twenty three!" at the ripe age of 23.