Only in the mind of a delusional teenage fan could tour dates in Philadelphia and Texas be considered “convenient.” (She was, no doubt, thinking of her close friend in Austin, but the concert was in Houston.)
I sensibly replied, “Maybe they’ll add tour dates closer to home. Last time, they came to Cincinnati.”
But it was the week before Christmas, and I didn’t have the “big bang” gift to rival the previous Christmas’ Lady Gaga tickets — which led to my driving to Columbus, white-knuckled, in the middle of a March snowstorm. “What was I thinking?” I asked myself, while Veronica and her friend, dressed up with rather alarming authenticity as Lady Gaga, giggled excitedly in the back seat.
“Never again!” I vowed, yet here I was, less than a year later, trying to make all her dreams come true. After all, as a lifelong Bruce Springsteen fan — or “cult member,” as one of my sisters recently described it — I could certainly understand the compulsion to “drive all night” to see my favorite band.
As I perused the Coldplay tour dates, the July 2 concert in Atlanta seemed doable: My niece Kathy lived there, and it would be a good chance to visit, make a mini-vacation out of it. Visiting the Martin Luther King Center had long been on my bucket list.
As summer approached, my beautiful plan began to unravel. Kathy, it turned out, would be out of town. Veronica was in the thick of a three-week intensive theater camp, known as the Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts, at the Human Race Theatre Company. The 22 young actors have only three weeks to write the music and script for an original musical.
As I looked at the logistics, there seemed only one possible solution: Spending the weekend in Atlanta and driving all the way back to Dayton after the Monday night concert. That way, Veronica would miss only one day of Lovewell without sacrificing her Coldplay dream.
My son Alec and his girlfriend, Natalie, also big Coldplay fans, headed out last Saturday morning. It wasn’t the leisurely mini-vacation I had dreamed about, but I was deeply moved by seeing the trajectory of Martin Luther King’s life, all in a few short blocks — from his meticulously restored birthplace to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he came of age, to the serenely beautiful reflecting pool that enshrines the tomb of King and his wife, Coretta.
Unexpectedly, we crossed another item off the collective Bucket List when Natalie learned about the pandas at the Atlanta Zoo. “Pandas were on my bucket list because I have been really interested in them since I was a little kid — my e-mail address even contained the word panda!” she explained. “Then I started researching pandas as I got older and they intrigued me, especially because I am interested in endangered animals and the environment.”
Not to mention, they are dang cute.
It already had been an amazing weekend, but the stakes remained high for the Coldplay concert at Atlanta’s Philips Arena that Monday night. It’s not every day that you drive 514 miles for a concert — and then drive all the way back afterward.
The concert was magical from the minute the arena lit up like a gigantic Christmas tree courtesy of the remote-controlled LED lights on our wristband. Although decades younger and musically very different, lead singer Chris Martin reminded me of Springsteen with his shameless showmanship and the sheer joyful intensity with which he performs.
“Best concert ever,” Veronica pronounced.
That momentarily made it worth it, but not while I was driving home through the mountains of Tennessee. I prayed over and over again, “Lord, get us home safely, and I promise I’ll never do anything this stupid again.”
We made it, of course, and Veronica scarcely missed a beat in her all-consuming Lovewell production, a musical about a visit from friendly aliens entitled “Portales, New Mexico” with its final performance at the Loft Theatre in Dayton at 3 p.m. today.
It all worked out, but I have repeatedly vowed, “Never again!”
No doubt, this time, I’ll keep my promise — until the next item needs to be checked off the Bucket List.
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