Concert with my Mom

Last Friday I went to a Dirty Heads concert with my mom at Thunder Valley. This was for my mom’s birthday and it was a really good concert. I haven’t been to a concert since 2019, and it was great to go back to a concert again. As I previously mentioned the concert was at the Thunder Valley casino. The only way to get into the venue there is to go through the casino area, which is not a good experience to say the least. When you walk in you get assaulted with the sight of hundreds of slot machines and the persistent smell of cigarette smoke. My mom’s friend’s husband works there and she told my mom that the Chinese place at Thunder Valley is pretty good so we went there for dinner. It was alright and thankfully pretty fast since we both desperately wanted to no longer be in the casino there. After enough time in the casino the cigarette smoke starts burning your eyes and it just gets worse the longer you stay in there. After about 45 minutes in the casino area eating we made our way to the entrance to the concert venue which is thankfully outside. You walk out the door of the casino into this outside area where there are security and ticket checkers. We walked into the casino and headed up to our seats. When we got into our seats the first thing we noticed was that it was very cold. Honestly that was definitely an upgrade from the smoke filled casino air. I’d rather freeze than breathe that stuff in. We got into the venue at about 7:15 and the concert was scheduled to start at 7:30 but concerts never start on time. The openers started their set at about 7:45 and their set ran until 8:30. Their set was really good. The opening artist was a band called The Elovaters, and they are a reggae/roots band from New England. I only recognized two of the songs that they played, but it was very good. It was the first time I went to a concert and people were excited for an opening artist. After their 45 minute set, there was about a 15 minute break between them and Dirty Heads, who we were there to see. Dirty Heads opened their set with their song “Heavy Water” which is one of my personal favorites from them, just behind “Life’s Been Good”, “That’s All I Need”, and “Rescue Me.” They ended up playing all of  the songs I just mentioned as well as “Lay Me Down”, “Vacation”(This is probably their biggest song), “My Sweet Summer”, “Medusa”, “El Dorado”, “Constellation”, and “Burn Slow”.  After their 1hr 15min set they went off stage and waited for like 4 or 5 minutes. After they came back on stage to do their encore. They played their songs “Island Glow”, and “Sloth’s Revenge”. I heard a saying that good music is always better live, and that cannot be more true. This was the fourth concert I have been to. The previous three were for The Green, Iration, and Rebelution. I think that this concert was probably the best one I have ever been too. (It definitely helped being able to sit down between the sets rather than standing up for 3 hours straight like some of the other concerts) Since this was a reggae concert, despite the gigantic no smoking signs, people were vaping a smoking pot left and right. Despite all of the smoke in their during the concert, the air was still clearer than the air in the casino, which is kind of sad. After we left my mom asked me if I was surprised at the amount of people in the casino.  I said that I wasn’t and my mom was surprised that that. She told me that she is always surprised at the amount of people in there considering none of them look happy and just keep spending more and more money. The reason I wasn’t surprised is because it is just a fact that if someone can do something stupid(like poor financial decisions) than they will do it. It is sad that some many people are in there, yet no surprising at all. Overall, it was great being able to go to a concert with my mom, and it was a great experience. Except for being in the casino.

My current Challenge progress as of May 8, 2024.