My sister and I didn’t own very many popular music CDs growing up. We were pretty late in the game when we finally made the switch from only listening to the mom-approved Sunny 106.5: The soft music station. But I can remember very clearly the few CDs we did end up owning, and Smash Mouth’s Astro Lounge was one of them.
I remember getting excited every time All Star came on the radio. It was the summer of 1999, and we had a lot of time to listen to the radio while we worked on putting together 500+ piece puzzles (probably of dolphins or horses or something) to avoid being out in the unbearable Vegas heat.
When my sister finally purchased the CD (we didn’t have a lot of allowance dollars, so choosing a CD was a huge musical and social commitment), we dedicated ourselves to memorizing the lyrics, which made the All Star experience even more fun when the song would inevitably come on the radio–because we could actually sing along, word for word. (“She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an ‘L’ on her forehead…” Such cleverness! What 12-year-old wouldn’t love that line?)
Cut to the present: I suddenly get a text from Gilesey saying, “Omg smash mouth will be playing at the fremont street experience in Las Vegas June 27. YOU MUST GO!!!” Wow. Now that’s a blast from the past. Memories of puzzles in the summer quickly filled my head. Ok, I’ll check it out.
I’ve never been a huge concert goer. I could probably count all the ones I’ve been to on both hands. Maybe it’s my aversion to crowds. However, Gilesey is a big live music fan, and Smash Mouth is apparently on his list of top 5 bands he’d love to see perform live. But he’s currently in Seoul. So despite the fact none of my Vegas friends were able to go with me, I was committed to going to this one in honor of Gilesey and my childhood.
*****
Standing next to hundreds of sweaty, smelly, booze-filled tourists and locals in 100+ degree weather and clouds of cigarette smoke, I wondered if the music would be worth the nauseating wait. Just as I was approaching my breaking point, a friendly fan offered me a chilled bottle of water the hotels apparently were providing free for the event. Life wasn’t so bad after all.
And then, it started.
Can I say, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d react to everything? I thought, Yeah maybe I’ll mouth some words, bob my head a few times, take some pics, you know, like a mature adult. What I didn’t expect was for my 12-year-old self to suddenly and uncontrollably break out from inside me…but it happened. I was screaming, dancing and seeing my hard work from the summer of ’99 come to fruition as I sang along at the top of my lungs to all the lyrics. Properly and utterly rocking out. Forget that I went alone. It didn’t feel like it at all. Plenty of people were getting just as into it as I was–a surreal experience surrounded by the bright neon lights of the town I grew up in. And for the first time in a while, I felt like I was really back home again……… and of course, like I was an All Star.
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