Do you watch Ted Lasso?
This 7 time Emmy winning show might be the best thing that has happened to me let alone society. Ted Lasso will make you smile in the midst of feeling like your life is unraveling, give you courage to be honest when it’s tough, and somehow found a way to use the word “fuck” in a scene with kids and still be good, wholesome TV1. Patiently waiting for late Summer 2022 for the release of season 3.
Ted somehow brings the best parts of being human to the screen. Ted makes us realize the biggest things in life are small and the seemingly smallest things are actually the most the important. Like not caring so much about wins and loses as a head coach of a premier futbol team and caring a whole lot more about remembering someone’s name. Even Nate’s, the kit man.
In the first episode, Ted asks Rebecca, his new boss and owner of AFC Richmond futbol club, what her first concert and best concert as a way to break the ice, a step towards winning her over.
I instantly answered the question to myself.
First concert was Kanye West2 in 2008. I didn’t even want to go. It sounds crazy now looking back, but I didn’t then.
I almost got fired from my job at Dion’s3 because my friends bought my ticket and forced me to go. I waited til the last week to give my all to getting my shift covered. There was a board everyone could see, managers included, and you can post shifts you want to give away, which I did, so co-workers could pick up my shift, which they didn’t.
I called in sick and I went to the concert. Upon my return to work I was questioned about my call in. I lied to my manager’s explaining the intensity of my sickness, which I wasn’t, how I wasn’t even able to go to a family event, which didn’t exist, so I could go to a concert, which I didn’t want to go to. They knew it was lie. They let me keep my job and put me on thin ice. I don’t really understand because I was complete ass hat of an employee.
I learned two things from all of this:
Lying sometimes works, but the long lasting inner turmoil is costly.
I love concerts.
The best concert I’ve been to might be T-Pain4 in Albuquerque, New Mexico at Sunshine Theater, a venue that holds about 1,000 people. It was just him. No opener, no second act, just T-Pain and his crew going crazy for a few hours. I mostly remember how buck wild everyone was, the stories told on stage, and a line in T-Pain’s freestyle asking how are people doing their shows live when he’s in the hook. He had a feature in just about every song on the radio at the time and I thought he murdered just about every artist on tour with that line.
I used to think concerts were strange because musicians perform their songs I listened to for free on my iPod Classic5. But then I experienced the energy, the atmosphere, the passion from the stage and the admiration from the crowd.
It was different than singing along with my friends in the Xterra or while playing Rock Band in Mickey’s living room. Singing along with your friends from the grass seats with the scent of schedule 1 substances in the air was something entirely different. It was intoxicating. Not because of the second hand high but because the entirety of the concert expereince. Although my favorite part of concerts is actually when music isn’t playing at all.
I love when the artists tell stories between songs. Whether it be sharing the inspiration for the next track or some elaborate anecdote that had nothing to do with anything, but told so well it felt like everything. They told their stories because they could and had our attention. I loved hearing T-Pain share how he was the first artist to make a million dollars off radio plays alone6. Or when Chelsea Cutler told us she dropped out of college in 2018 to go on tour and open for Quinn XCII and now she has over 10,000,000 monthly Spotify listeners.
Or when Macklemore shared how he feels about cell phones at concerts, people posting every second onto Snapchat or Instagram stories to show their followers where they are. He asked everyone to put their phones away for the next song so we can be present and blow the roof off the El Rey Theater. And we did and we did. He crowd walked, not surfed. Something I’ve never seen before. (image below is not from the Albuquerque concert but it looked something like that)
I became obsessed with this kind of storytelling. The way artists captivated me with words that didn’t rhyme, words without a band playing, words without a kick drum slapping your ear drums. Nothing but words. I felt like I was hearing one of kind stories, stories no one else would ever hear unless they paid the price of admission too. I’m sure the artists tell the same stories hundreds of times but in those moments, they felt unique and tailored specifically for those who showed up. And after every concert, I always left wanting to do exactly that — to tell stories in-between songs, from a stage, at my shows, for people with ears to hear.
If you’ve been following me for a while or been around me enough, you’ve probably heard me say this too many times. But one more won’t hurt. Last time7. If you’ve been following me for a while or been around me enough, you would also know I only know three chords and I’m a sorry singer. My dreams of going on tour seem to be well beyond reach. But my life sometimes feels like music and these writings will be the stories told between the songs I live.
Thanks for listening.
Oh and before you go…
Your first concert and best concert?
Website: justjoshperez.com
Twitter: @justjoshperez
Instagram: @justjoshperez
Mind your own business, Phoebe.
April 16th, 2008 - Kanye with Lupe Fiasco and N.E.R.D - which I realize is a flex now and I was ridiculous for not wanting to go then.
A local pizza joint founded in the 70’s that was supposed to be a Greek restaurant called “Dionysus” after the Greek god of fertility and wine but to save money they only bought the letters D I O N S for the restaurant’s sign — now a present day pizza place and the only two Greek items on the menu are Greek salad and Greek dressing.
I can probably make an argument for several concerts being the best one, but T Pain came to mind and didn’t expect a solo, three hour long T Pain concert to be that good but it was.
I loved my iPod Classic, the one that had Captain Jack Sparrow on the box. The 1st gen iPhone was out in 2008 but I wasn’t team iPhone until the 3GS model came out in 2009. Till then, I was a loyal Blackberry owner. Rest In Peace.
Well I actually don’t know if this is true but I do know people make pennies for one radio play… Well I only know that if this article from popsonguniversity.com is true. If you want to fact check me and someone who actually knows what I’m trying to talk about here, feel free to drop some intel in the comments.
It’s not the last time.
1st concert was Tower of Power (early 80’s); best concert at BioPark Zoo Music in Albuquerque included Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray, and Gin Blossoms (2013)
1st concert was lecrae in middle school looking back at it….
that shit sucked