WASTING AWAY IN MARGARITAVILLE

I think everyone should attend at least one Jimmy Buffett concert at some point in life, if for no other reason than it will be one of the few times you get the opportunity to say, “Hey, that old guy’s wearing a coconut bra.”

I don’t go to concerts very often. In fact, the last big concert I attended was in 1989, a quiet evening I spent with Metallica. That may actually be the reason I haven’t been back for so long, as I was waiting for the ringing in my ears to subside.

But when we heard Jimmy Buffett was coming to the area, we decided it was time to dust off the concert shoes and join the party. Several of our neighbors are also fans of Jimmy Buffett, so we decided to get a big group together and hit the show.

In all, nine would be attending. There would be four couples, plus one teen-ager, who I am pretty sure spent the six or seven days leading up to the concert praying that the adults he would be with would not embarrass him. Come to think of it, I guess most teen-agers spend the better part of their teen years hoping adults will not embarrass them, so this was probably nothing out of the ordinary.

We traveled to the concert in style, courtesy of a stretch limousine. One of my neighbors was celebrating a birthday and decided this would be the only way to travel. Next time you’re cruising down the road and see a limousine and start wondering what celebrity is in the back, keep in mind that there is about a 99% chance that the car is packed with a bunch of everyday schmoes trying not to spill margaritas and singing WAY off key.

The best part about the limousine ride is that it puts you out right at the door, which is convenient, because right inside the door is a bathroom, which was a desperately needed facility to the one person in the car who passed up margaritas for beer. I guess this is one area in which Greyhound beats a limousine.

Once we all got inside the arena, we began to head towards out seats. As I gazed around the crowd, I realized that these people surrounding me were not merely fans. They were disciples. Sure, several people in our group had thrown on Hawaiian shirts and such, but no one in our crowd was sporting a four-foot paper mache shark on their head.

Folks follow around Jimmy Buffett the way people used to follow around The Grateful Dead or Moses. These are devout followers. Listening to people talk, you could hear folks discussing their plans to be in Florida the next day, to catch his next show. But as fanatical as they are, they are some of the nicest folks you will ever go see a concert with. Someone bumps into you, they say excuse me. Someone gets to the margarita line the same time as you, they offer to let you go first. It’s not something you see at most concerts these days, where often the kindest thing fellow concertgoers will do is to step on your skull with the soft part of their shoe during the riot.

We arrived at our seats in the upper deck and, despite the height, they were pretty well located. We were parked right squarely in front of two very large TV screens. Plus, we were peering right over the stage. As someone in our group noted, had we been at the other end of the arena, Jimmy would have been the size of half of your pinkie. Where we were sitting, he was as big as your thumb!

When Jimmy Buffett came on stage, it occurred to me that this man has the greatest job in the world. And not just because he gets paid millions of dollars a year to strum a guitar and sing about frozen drinks. No, he has the greatest job in the world because, quite simply, he gets to go to work barefoot. I mean, imagine how great your life would be if you just had to throw on some cut-off shorts and a Piggly Wiggly shirt and BAM! – you’re at the office. Makes that necktie feel a little tighter than usual, huh?

The concert itself was great. He played for about three hours, and even the songs I didn’t know were enjoyable. And if I had so much as a moment of disinterest in the concert itself, I could always turn my attention to the young gentlemen sitting directly in front of me. They both had hand-made fan T-shirts, and by “hand-made” I mean “white t-shirts scrawled on with black magic marker.” And apparently the fumes of the markers had gotten to them, because it had knocked one of them completely unconscious, and made the other one pretty much a wholesale moron (to the point of not being able to spell the words on his shirt correctly).

Upon our return, we all agreed that everything went exactly as we had hoped. The ride was great, the concert was a blast, and everybody had a really good time. We’re all looking forward to going to a concert again. I’ve already got my coconut bra ready.