J.B. and J.T.

The concert started at 7:30. We got to our seats at some point around 7:45 with the concert already in progress.

Bummer.

You can see in the image above that the lights are not down and there are plenty of people still filing in.

The parking and the lines to get in were just atrocious. $40 to park, that's fucking bullshit. And then the lines to get in were slow for no reason at all. But eventually we got in.

Flash back a couple of months, when it seemed that Covid was under control. "Want to go see James Taylor and Jackson Browne?", Patty asked. Hmm ... two artists that I have no interest in. "If you want to go I'll go with you."

She wanted to go.

So that's how I found myself at the at the BB&T Pavilion in 90° heat, with the delta variant raging, listing to music I don't particularly enjoy.

To my surprise and delight, I actually enjoyed Jackson Browne's set, an artist I had always found annoying. 

Alas, his set lasted only an hour or so, and we missed the first bit. And he had no encore. Disappointing for sure.

James Taylor came out and played with Jackson, and later Jackson would come out and play with James.

Alas I found much of Taylor's set boring, although some songs really resonated with me.

Now both of these fellows are clearly quite talented. And pretty much everyone went home happy. It's just that this style of music is not my cup of tea.

I don't know how Taylor was able to wear a jacket, I was sweating just sitting there. The guy three seats over from me was drenched in sweat, literally dripping. 

Jackson's set felt somehow more authentic than Taylor's, Taylor's seeming more scripted (after the show I read a review of the same show in Georgia, and it was the just as what we saw, with Taylor telling the same jokes and preforming the same encores).

Part of the reason I preferred Jackson's set was that I recognized more of the songs. And they were more rock songs then strictly singer songwriter-ish. As noted the singer songwriter genre is not my thing. Perhaps my dislike of Jackson Browne was more with how he was pigeonholed than with his actual music. Or maybe my tastes are changing.

One of Taylor's songs that really hit home was Fire and Rain. For two reasons. One is that the we are planning a memorial for my dad, who passed away just about one year ago. And there was a text string in progress for this with my siblings during the concert. And second is that as part of that text string I learned that my mom's best friend is now in hospice care. And this song had me crying.

Overall I enjoyed it. It was nice to be out again, although Covid was in the back of my mind throughout the night. At one point Patty said that we should go to more concerts. I think she is right. Maybe we'll even go see bands I like ...