This is American Music Take One

Last night I went to a free Violent Femmes concert at the U. The festivities started at 5:30 with a decent opening band that played for an hour or so. The next "band" was a guy in a pink shirt with a guitar. I didn't like him much, but he didn't play too long so.... Then it was the Femmes. I have to say they kicked. One of the best concerts I've been to. I was up close in the part of the crowd that jumps around and runs into eachother and really gets into the music. I'm black and blue this morning and a bit sore- always a sign of a good concert. The atmosphere was great, the crowd just the right size and the weather was perfect (it was all outdoors).
There are a few things, though, that I feel need to be banned from concerts. Or at least from the kinetic part of the crowd. I don't care what happens back where people just stand there nodding thier heads. First is synthetic fibers. When you're jumping around and sweating and having a raucus good time, the last thing you want is to get thrown against someone wearing scratchy polyester. Second is small children. Arrakis was right up by the stage and she said there were a bunch of 12 year olds* up by her who didn't know the music of the VF at all and were constantly in danger of being squished. I was a bit farther back where people were bouncing and kicking and flailing and there were these four prepubescent girls with braces who maybe weighed 200 lbs between the four of them. They did not know the music either and got pushed down every two minutes. According to concert etiquite when someone falls, you stop kicking and help them up, so these little girls disrupted the violence quite often and threw off the groove a bit. Finally, long hair should be pulled up. When you're jumping around coating in sweat (yours and eveyone elses) the last thing you want is to bump into some chick with waist length hair and get it all stuck to your arm.
It really was a good show though. I had a rockin' time and when you're really into the music and the crowd, those little above-mentioned annoyances don't really matter much.

*by 12 year old I mean a kid shorter than my shoulderblade who could be just about any age under 17.