Back in August, we went to the show at Iron Horse in Northampton. We were pleased to be first in line, but about five minutes after we arrived, Paul and Diane showed up, very well prepared with folding chairs. Once we started chatting with them, we realized there was a lot of overlap in our musical tastes, and that they are perhaps even more avid concert-goers than we are. They mentioned to us that The Lone Bellow was performing at Mohegan Sun in September, in the Wolf Den. And it was FREE! The catch, they informed us, was that there was no guarantee of getting into the show. You had to show up and take your chances.
We were so torn. On the one hand, another chance to see TLB! For FREE! On the other, we are not exactly into casinos, and the idea of seeing a concert in one did not appeal to us very much. Or worse, the possibility of getting to a casino and finding out we couldn’t even get in to the show. Then I realized my husband, John, and I had a 6:30am flight from Boston to San Francisco the morning after the show, and that seemed to seal the decision to pass on Mohegan Sun.
But then as the date of the show got closer, Abra started talking about maybe going despite the risk, because we didn’t know when they would be touring again. And I realized it would be foolish not to take the opportunity to see the band, especially since I had already missed TWO shows in July while on family vacation (if only tour dates came out before we make vacation plans!). So we just had to figure out how to get my son, Ezra, to Saratoga Springs, NY, to stay with my grandparents while we were in SF; get my dog to his boarding facility in Rhode Island; get to the show early enough to secure seats; and then get back to Boston in time to catch our flight.
As it turned out, our dog’s boarding facility was only 30 minutes from Mohegan Sun. So Abra and I drove the dog to RI, hit some vintage and thrift shops and had some amazing Thai food in Westerly, RI, then headed for Mohegan Sun. We got there with plenty of time.
Meanwhile, John was driving Ezra to NY, with plans to meet us at Mohegan Sun by 6pm when the doors opened. But of course the drive to NY took longer than expected, and of course my grandparents , who love John, wanted to talk his ear off once they had him in their clutches, and of course on the way to CT traffic came to a standstill on I-91. But John finally made it, ran through the casino and took his place with us in line at 5:59.
And it was worth it. The show was great, we got to see Paul and Diane again, we met some other great fans, and we got to see the band perform one last time before they took a break from touring on the east coast.
That's our story. What's yours?