I'm finally getting around to posting an entry about the Sarah McLachlan concert from Thursday night.

It was an excellent experience, in spite of a few drawbacks.

We rode the train to the concert. This was the first time that we have been on the train. The Trinity Rail Express is a local train that runs between Fort Worth and Dallas as a mostly commuter train. There are roughly a dozen stops along the way. One of them is right next door to where I work. So, I drove my van and Lindsey drove her car, in which Rachel rode. We first met at the corner Shell station, at which I planned to extract monetary units from the ATM. (Notice, kiddies, that I did NOT say "ATM Machine." This, of course, is redundant, since ATM stands for Automatic Teller Machine. Hence, if you say, "ATM Machine," you have effectively said, "Automatic Teller Machine Machine." Get it??)

However, oddly, the Shell station was all locked up. Lights on, nobody home. Several people milled about in confusion, trying to buy gas, snacks, etc. After waiting about 5 minutes, we decided to go up the road a bit to another convenience store and try their ATM.

It wouldn't work. I tried more than one card, too. It kept saying, "Unable to complete transaction at this time." Dang.

By this time, we didn't have time to try another one. I had, like $60 on me, so we just headed for the train station.

We arrived with 5 minutes until the train was scheduled to depart. I hurried up to the ticket machine to face on of the most goshawful user unfriendly systems I have ever seen! What is it about governments that cause them to make things as difficult as possible? I have a master's degree, for crying out loud, so I am far from stupid. Ignorant about quite a few things, yes. But I can usually figure out how to operate things like ticket machines. I mean, I never even read the insructions on video games. I just start playing. Hours later, I figure out what the O button does.

Anyway, a nice train attendant guy helped me with the machine.

The debit/credit card reader on this machine wouldn't work!

Seriously!

So, the guy started over and redid the transaction so I could slip a 20 into the bill taker thingy. Fortunately, the machine then spit out three tickets. Unfortunately, it spit out 6 Sakajawea dollar coins.

*hops on soap box* WHY, oh why, does the government think we want those things??? Every type of government machine spits those things out as change. Bought any stamps at a post office machine, lately?? Can you imagine trying to pass those off at your local McDonald's where the 16 year old kid is at the register making change? "Um...that's not a dollar. That's a coin." Sheesh! *gets off soap box*

Where was I??

Oh, yes...the train ride was perfectly delightful. It was refreshingly cool in the car and the seats were comfortable enough. And they have some seats that face each other, so you can actually talk to the people you are riding with. Or people you aren't riding with, should you so desire.

We arrived at the AA Center at roughly 7pm, thirty minutes before the concert was to start.

We bought small pizzas at the Pizza Hut counter, (THEIR debit/credit card reader WORKED, thank you very much!) and found our seats. We had to use a magnifying glass to actually see them, as they were made for pixies. Fairies. The Tinkerbell kind.

*new soap box* C'mon, people! I know I'm 100 lbs overweight, but this is ridiculous! I know the goal is to squeeze as many people as possible in this place, but give us a break! *gets off new soap box*

The show started promptly at 7:30. The warm up act was a young lady named Butterfly Boucher (pronounced like voucher). She was wonderful. She played bass most of the time, as well as acoustic guitar on one song. Her vocals were good and the songs had a refreshingly original quality to them. Lindsey bought the cd for us later in the show (Thank you, dear!)

By the way, the reason that I titled this entry "Butterfly Boucher" instead of "Sarah McLachlan" was, well, everybody knows who Sarah is. I want people to know who Butterfly Boucher is. I seriously believe she deserves our attention. Call your local radio station and request her song, "Another White Dash." Do it. Now.

Sarah McLachlan was amazing. I know. Lot's of you are saying "duh." Well, I'm not too terribly familiar with much of her material. I mean, I know "Building a Mystery," and a couple of others, but that's about it. Nevertheless, I wasn't bored at all during this roughly two hour show. (She sang for an hour and a half, then had a 20 minute encoure, followed by a second, solo encore of one piano song.) Her voice is incredible, and she soars to heights unknown on one of her songs (is it called "Fear?"). She was very appreciative of our response, and at one point almost seemed embarassed by the extended applause.

Her band, which consisted of two guitarists, a bass, two keyboardists, a drummer, and a back up female vocalist (who, by the way, had no trouble keeping up with Sarah!), was truly amazing! They were tight! (That means that they played really well together in musical terms.)

It was a great concert, marred only by the extremely annoying people behind us who TALKED ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE FREAKING CONCERT! And the people who felt that they had to bless us all with a "WE LOVE YOU, SARAH!" at a crucial quite moment in "Angel."

*last soap box* Listen, people. Everybody paid for their tickets. We paid $65 each, plus service charges for our tiny seats. In my mind, this means that I deserve a relatively undisturbed experience. I understand that people have to get up to go to the restroom, get beer, nachos, etc. But people do NOT need to climb over me to hug their friends who are on the floor in front of us. And, as God is my witness, I fail to understand why someone would pay that much money for a concert ticket, then proceed to talk all the way through the thing. They wasted a lot of their own money, and almost wasted mine. Thankfully, I was able to ignore them most of the time. *gets off last soapbox*

I am now in the position of needing to buy some Sarah cds. No, I don't have any. But I will soon. And I'd love to see her again.

I've written much too much. Sorry about that.

Call your radio station. Request Butterfly Boucher. Buy her cd. Today.

Missed anything?
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