I went to my first concert on Sunday!!! Yes, I'm 18. Yes, I hadn't gone to a concert. So yes, I haven't had a life before then. But I really wanted my first concert to be a good one, with music and people that I know and love. And then last week I was listening to spotify and adding music to playlists when I saw that Ingrid Michaelson was playing in San Francisco the coming Sunday at Alice's Summerthing. I looked up the concert and I immediately knew that I was going. Ingrid Michaelson and Kodaline in one concert (AH!). I have loved Ingrid Michaelson's music for so long and I have really liked Kodaline since I heard about them around a year ago. I was going, no doubt in my mind, and so I invited some my very bestest friends and my sister and cousin.
So the morning began with me waking up at 6:30 am (and then of course falling back asleep for another 20 minutes until I realized I had to take a shower and leave by 7:30). My sister, my cousin, and I jumped into the car at 8:00 am (7:30 was never going to happen) and headed to my friend Colleen's house to pick her up, and then to Jessica's and then the journey began.
About 2 hours on the freeway, and 20 minutes navigating the city streets later, we made it to Sharon Meadows in Golden Gate park. We passed the entrance still in the car, and there was a crowd already there. I was so excited that this was going to be an actual concert: With actual people and food vendors and picnic blankets and the odd hookah smoker and everything I had expected and maybe some stuff I hadn't.
Time to find a parking spot. I had never had to parallel park before and now there I was trying to parallel park with people driving by me and me freaking out. I had naively tried to go in forwards which ended up in me awkwardly having to try and back out of the space I was wedged diagonally into, and that's when we heard it... The scratching of the side of my mom's 3 month old prius into the car I had parked in front of. 0_0 I slowly pulled away from the unfortunate car, moved up next to the car I wanted to park behind and easily backed into the the parking space (which is what I should have done in the first place, ugh). I got out of the car, and there it was, a sea foam green splotch across the left side on the front bumper of the car behind us. "Oh..my..Goodness... what did I just do?"
After freaking out about for a few more minutes, I left a note on the car saying something awkward along the lines of: "Hi. I parallel parked into your car. I'm really sorry :( My insurance number is blah blah and my phone number is blah blah if you need anything else." And then we just kind of got going because that is all I could do. We got into a long zig-zag line and waited for another half hour. When we got up to the bag check I was overjoyed, I was so close. I unzip my camera bag and am met with a confused look and the lady saying "These types of cameras aren't allowed," while pointing at my new rebel t3i that I got for graduation. But luckily, another woman came up and said "I'm not going to be a bitch today. It's a free concert anyways." What a wonderful woman. Day saved.
Into the crowd I went. All of us emerged on the other side with granola samples and garlic fry cravings. But we prioritized and set up our picnic blanket with a good view of the stage. After our space was set up, my sister, my cousin and I went to go get food for everyone. Two orders of garlic fries and a teriyaki chicken stick later we sat around waiting for the show to start. A couple called Us the Duo were first, and they were extremely cute, I'll definitely have to check out more of their music. Next was KODALINE !!!! They were amazingly beautiful and surprisingly/not-surprisingly awkward, which I thought was even better. More relatable, haha. So good. Sooooo good. And then, dun-dun-dun-duuuuun Ingrid Michaelson came on. And she sang "The Way I Am" and "Warpath" and her newer one "Girls Chase Boys" and it was all perfect. This is about the time I realized I was getting sunburnt, but who cares, Ingrid Michaelson is on! And when she was done, it was a sad time, but Magic! came on (the one who sings "Rude") and they were pretty good, but I'm surprised they went after Ingrid. I thought she was better (Don't get me wrong though, I do like "Rude"), but that might be because I know her songs. After the concert was over we packed up and after some random driving through golden gate park (we found out they even have archery bullseyes in there!) we headed over to pier 39. I ended up taking a wrong turn, but it was fate because we saw a trader joes and we obviously had to stop there :) Plus we had to use the bathroom... I picked up some eggplant hummus, my sister some trail mix, and Jessica some dried apricots, and then we were off to the pier.
It was so busy, so parking was a problem...again. But we ended up parking pretty close, in the parking lot with the Boudin's in it, and we got clam chowders and corn bisques and we even got our parking validated. My cousin even got a super awesome turtle bread bowl, which the rest of us stared at with jealousy. As always, Boudin's was great. With our tummies full we began the drive back home.
Sunday was amazing. And I definitely want to do something like that again. (even with the chance of getting another horrendous sunburn, like the one I am dealing with currently)
