Baby's first rap show

Yesterday was day one of the Memphis Heritage and Music Festival, and we ventured over there twice. Early afternoon, the festival was just getting started, and we watched some Chinese martial artistry, a cooking demonstration, and genuinely enjoyed a DJ mixing some fantastic techno music. But the sun was high, and we were getting warmer than we wanted to be. Since swine flu daughter was still not 100%, we left, but the we planned to return for the headliners playing in the evening.

As the appointed hour approached, the girl was clearly going nowhere. She was tired and not very interested in live music. The boy, however, was still game, so he and I headed out, finding a decent parking space (not as good as our space earlier, but still not bad). We ran into an old friend of mine from college, who also had been one of the boy's preschool teachers, and she was planning to head over to the same stage we were, to see Al Kapone. He and I both like rap music, and the show was fantastic. Great energy, great band.

I will admit, though, that seeing this show with my son was strange. See, when I'm in the audience, I tend to move up to the front of the crowd, and I get a workout, because I like to dance. My boy, however, does not like to get in the front of anything, so we stayed off to the side, still close to the stage, but not as close as I would have liked.

He and I also have different opinions about volume. At a show like this, I am in the "turn it up to eleven" school of thought. But my sweet boy turns the volume down whenever he can.

All this added up to an early departure, before the set was done. The boy claimed tiredness, but I think he was a bit overwhelmed by the noise and the crowd. Turns out he made a very good decision, though, because we saw lightning as we drove home, and a big thunderstorm began a few minutes later. Since we didn't have an umbrella, our parking space would have been horrible if we'd left later.

As it was, we had a great time, and I think Al Kapone has a new lifelong fan. We might have to go back today....


*****I am well aware that I have completely failed at my September NaBloPoMo effort. I'm not being graded, at least not as far as I know, so I'm okay with it. It's hard to blog when swine flu girl totally hogs the computer to play Sims. Just saying.