In concert!

Monday afternoon we met up with some friends in the church parking lot, piled 7 women into a minivan and headed off to LA. We dined at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) in downtown LA, then headed a few miles west to the Wiltern Theater.

We had a handicapped placard in the car, and kept asking the parking staff where the handicapped spots were. They kept directing us to "illegal" spots, spots we couldn't possibly fit into. Finally we found a regular spot that looked like it would work, and headed for the elevator and down to the ground floor. Where there were plenty of handicapped spots. Sigh.

Then we made our way past the homeless man begging and the ticket scalpers and the man selling t-shirts for $5 each. We went through the security check and had our tickets scanned at the door. We were in! First things first - I headed downstairs to the ladies' room, then back upstairs for a $3 bottle of water (it could have been worse). We looked at the concert t-shirts, but they only had pastels and I just can't wear those colors. Drat! We went and found our seats, and settled in to wait for the opening act.

The opening act was Bitch and the Exciting Conclusion. After the first song, I wasn't very impressed, and braced myself for duration. But a couple of songs later, she got my attention with some political rap. But what sold me was the song "Pussy Manifesto" -- Bitch had the entire theater in the palm of her hands with that one! I wish I could find a video clip or even the lyrics on line, but no luck so far. We might just have to buy her album! Bitch played for about 45 minutes, then the roadies came out to rearrange the stage, which took about 20 minutes.

Finally, Amy and Emily walked out. Mary had never seen them in concert before, and it had been several years since I had seen them live. They played a lot of their newer stuff, which I don't know cuz I'm a bit behind on the album collection, and a lot of their older stuff, too. Wanna see their set list for that night? One of the things I love about the Indigo Girls is that they love it when the audience sings along. They cut out their vocals and let the audience take it for several lines, and sometimes a whole verse. Unlike some other artists, they are not threatened by the sing-along. And the fans love it!

And they had some surprises, too. They brought out Vonda Shepard to do a duet with Emily. It turned out Vonda had been sitting two rows ahead of us! Then a couple of songs later, they brought out Bitch again and called Lisa Loeb to sing on stage with a couple of others whose names escape me right now. I know, I know, but it was late and I was nearly deafened by that point.

By the time we got home it was nearly 12:30 am. Thank Goddess I had decided to take the next day off of work, cuz there is no way I could have gotten up at 5 am and been functional!