So, in order to be considered for the school newspaper, we had to right a little paper. I figured if I had to do it, I might as well enjoy doing it. Might as well post it here and get some feedback, right?
Here goes:
When school rolls around, everyone asks the same question, “How was your summer?” Of course, I smile and nod and say it was good. But this year, summer ‘07 exceeded expectations. This year, when the old lady down the street asked me if I had a good summer, I could only think of one thing...
Music is a part of pop culture. It’s something regarded as sacred among teenagers. A day without music is difficult to fathom. Without those sweet melodies, how would we finish our tedious Math homework? The rocker kids blast their music, loud and proud…and obnoxious. The preppy girls gab about how much they love Hilary Duff’s new song. I never saw that as real music. My music was what I came home to everyday after school, something I look forward to, but never had to think about, because it’s always been one of the best parts of the day. For me, the album that’s always in the CD player, the titles toping the “Top 25 Most Played” list on my iPod, seem to always bare one name, John Mayer. His smooth, bluesy rock keeps me humming and happy for hours at a time. Whenever his latest hit comes on the radio, I can’t help but turn it up and sing off-key. His guitar skills awe me, and the lyrics couldn’t be better. When I heard he was playing a show here last summer, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t imagine anything cooler than seeing it all being done right before my eyes.
The tickets came in the mail, 27th row on the 24th of July. I spend a month of my summer waiting for that day to roll around, and when it did, the minutes seemed to go by slower than years. I went with my mom, my friend Emily, and her mother. Emily and I couldn’t have been more eager for Mr. Mayer to take the stage. We took our seats in the middle of the opening act, Ben Folds. I had heard his name before, and listened to him a little bit on the internet. From those thirty second iTunes clips, I concluded that he was pretty good. However, ten minutes into his show, we all had headaches from him violently slamming his fingers up against the piano keys (What did that piano ever do to him?), and then repeatedly hurling his stool at the piano. When Folds finally ended his performance, we had only a half hour before John Mayer took the stage. Emily and I passed the time by counting the guitars they put on the stage, we were awed by the final count of eight, which turned out to not even be his, John’s guitars were all back stage, and a new one was brought out for every song. At last, the lights dimmed, and it seemed like someone took the noise level for the arena and cranked it up like the air conditioner on the hottest summer day. The screams only grew louder when John Mayer played the beginning notes of “Belief” on his guitar and walked onto the stage.
In the weeks before the highly anticipated performance, I kept having very odd nightmares. In each one, we would either show up to the show later, or miss it completely. However, when we did make the show, John Mayer was doing a horrible job. In one dream, it was pouring outside, and they wouldn’t let us into our seats because we had umbrellas, so we had to watch the show from outside. When the show started, we hoped our long wait out in the rain would be worth it. Unfortunately, it was not, and the entire concert turned out to be only Christmas Carols. Luckily, the concert I attended in reality was the opposite in every way. For the next two hours, my favorite songs were played, there were loud ones, soft ones, and top 20 hits. I knew all the words to all the songs, and even caught the girl who showed us to our seats laughing at my lip-synching a few times.
When my mother rushed us out of the arena to beat the traffic, it took a minute to gain back our hearing. My mother asked us what we thought, and all we could say was “amazing.” Now the question was, how do we spend the rest of our summer?
