Green Day Weekend

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted here.

Well, I have a fantastic weekend to post about. My baby girl turned 14 on Saturday. For her birthday present, she and I flew up to New Jersey to see her favorite band, Green Day, in concert. At the last minute, I decided to go ahead and get tickets to see American Idiot on Broadway as well. It seemed a shame to be so close to NYC and not go up for the show.

So, on Friday we went to the airport and had an uneventful flight to New Jersey. I hate to fly, but I love to travel, so I have to fly. Anyway, any flight that lands safely is a good flight in my eyes, so we had a good flight.

We arrived in Newark and I picked up a rental car at the airport to drive to our hotel in Iselin. Note to self: next time, take New Jersey transit. Driving in NJ is a pain in the ass. More on that later.

The hotel was magnificent. I got a great deal on the room through my employer, and it was really phenomenal. Clean, spacious, comfy. If you ever need to stay in Iselin, NJ, I highly recommend the Renaissance Woodbridge Marriott.

We got information about the train to NYC, got ready for the show, and took the hotel shuttle to the tran station. I was a little panicked about whether we were going to make it in time; I had no idea how long the will-call line might be, how long it would take us to get to Broadway from Penn Station, whether the train would arrive on time...but to keep the post from rambling, let's just say that we arrived in our seats in plenty of time.

So, we had terrific seats. Center stage, about ten rows from the front. We were very excited to see the show. Julia noticed some girls in the front row looking back and kind of freaking out; so, she looks behind her, gets a glazed look in her eyes, and turns to look at me. I looked up and said, "What?"

She says, "Can you not see who that is?"

I looked more carefully. It was Billie Joe Armstrong. Holy shit.

He and his wife sat in their seats, two rows up and about five seats over from us. It was awesome. Julia wanted to go talk to him, but was nervous, and the show was close to starting. Finally, she got up and started to walk toward him, but the usher lady told her to take her seat, because the show was starting. Crap!

But it was very cool to sit that close to him at the show. The show was amazing, of course. It is a fantastic musical. So much energy, and the music is top-notch.

We stopped to have pizza on our way back to the train, and the guy behind the counter said, "You two look alike. Are you sisters?"

I don't know whether he was bullshitting me or not, but it felt good. :) Also, New York pizza...mmmmmmmmmmmm.

The next morning we went back into the city. We went to Times Square and had our makeup done at Inglot. The guy who did my face said a lot of nice things about me; that I had good skin, pretty eyes, good eyelashes...he was very obviously gay, so either he really meant it, or thought that it would make me buy more stuff. :)

Again, we were pushing it for time on the way back. We shared a cab from the station with a couple with a cute little girl who were going to the same hotel. On the way, we discovered that they were going to the Green Day concert too. Small world.

So, we get to the hotel room, get ready, get in the car and drive to Holmdel. It took me fifteen minutes to get on the road going in the right direction, because apparently, you can't make a left turn in New Jersey. Anywhere. Ever. And GPS systems do not know this. It was infuriating.

We made it to the show; we bought Zippos; we watched the concert. It was awesome. They started with the newer stuff, but then played lots of their old songs. They played lots of stuff that only the hard-core fans would even know. Billie Joe got kids and old people (my age - heh) from the audience to sing, dance, crowd surf. A lady got on stage and signed the last verse of Longview in American Sign Language. Billie Joe thought that was awesome and gave her a guitar. They played for four hours. We loved it.

My one regret is that I didn't buy tickets early enough to get us in the very front. Someday, soon I hope, I will get my baby in the front row of a Green Day concert. I want her to get a chance to be up on stage with them. I want her to be able to tell Mike Dirnt that she plays bass because of his awesomeness. I will do this for my baby girl. But for now, I hope she has a very fond memory of our Green Day birthday weekend.

Happy birthday, AwesomeChild. Your mom loves you more than you can imagine.