Are You Busy One Year From Now?

   
     I am the first of all my friends to get excited about a concert announcement. If I really want to go to an event, the furious link sharing, venue debates, and messages that begin. The hype lasts about 2-3 days between the tour announcement and the pre-sale date with comments like "Does your sister want to go so we can get the 4-pack seats?" or "Are we all agreeing that we will stick with this unless the seats are over $70.00?" * If we strike out during the pre-sale it is not guaranteed there will be any trinkets left for general on sale, although I do fondly remember the Maroon 5 ticket miracle in the Fall of 2014.
   

McGraw at the 2014 "Sundown Heaventown"
tour (c)PipPepPop

    With all of this background knowledge, one might ask why I even bother seeing live music. Some people are addicted to drugs or gambling or drinking, but I am addicted to live music!  I am delighted to hear Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's announcement they are re-booting their 2006 Soul2Soul tour for 2017. On top of that, the country power couple is celebrating 20 years of  a as co-parents and marriage champions. What could be better than that news?  Tickets begin going on sale this Friday for concert dates. Yes, this Friday the 20th!

     When I looked to see where my local shows would be, I discovered the last stop on the tour is at Brooklyn's Barclays Center (sigh). (For various reasons, I have had bad associations with attending events at the center, but that is a story for another time). The date of that tour-ending show? It's October 27th of next year! Let me remind you, we haven't even passed this October 27th yet.  I'm a bit shocked the tour would announce dates over a year into the future. While I can't see this show going in sale yet, I have reached the point in my life where I like making plans, but I don't like paying for tickets and arranging my entire October a year from now around this date.  I enjoyed seeing Tim (or Timmy McGee as my friends lovingly call him) in 2014, and I committed to that show 2 months out, which is more than reasonable. I'm certainly not going to "Live Like You Were Dying" and commit to pricey concert tickets a year in advance.


* I wish I was joking about the prices. The cheapest concert tickets I purchased this year were $20.00 lawn seats for Daruis Rucker (during a ticket discount sale) and it rained on our uncovered lawn seats. See my recent piece on the difficulty to even procure concert tickets and the accompanying skyrocketing prices.

A Thank You Note to the CW

Dear CW,

We've had our aches and pains over the years. I've been working on forgiving you for the whole cancelling Buffy and Roswell and shifting them to UPN thing.

Although, I may never forgive you for the dreadful resurrection of 7th Heaven. The last three or four years of that show were a straight up joke.

I have to thank you personally for listening to the fans for once. Most importantly in regard to One Tree Hill. This show has really meant a lot to me. I've grown up with Nathan, Brooke, Lucas, Peyton, Haley, and the others in Tree Hill. We've graduated high school, went to college, and struggled into adulthood at the same time.

I was terrified that this constant in my life, this one bond, would be yanked from my life today with your 2010-2011 season announcement. Nobody thought One Tree Hill would live to see this September, most especially me. But I had a change of heart in the last week. I began to feel guilt for commenting a few weeks ago that I thought maybe it was time to end.

But, I braced for the worst. There's nothing I hate more than an unplanned series finale (see Angel's Not Fade Away), which would have happened with Monday night's possible double murder of two main characters. SPOILER- Clay AND Quinn get shot by that crazy tennis player Katie that wants Clay to be her agent/lover.

Now season 7 hasn't been the best with the departures of Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton, but I've stuck with you. I've stuck with you through the five year jump, the murder of Uncle Keith, the birth of little Jamie, and I've continued to love and support the show.

But now one tree hill has the time, whether it be a half a season or a full season, to go out with dignity and grace. Not just tying up ends with tearful songs and long speeches.

It's going to take more than a trip to Utah for Haley to get over her depression and losing her mother. Mouth and Skills can't just go back to being bros overnight. Brooke and Julian can't just get engaged and ride off into the sunset. And have we ever seen the last of dan Scott? I think not.

Positive note: Brooke and her mother can finally get along. That part of the episode was nice and very necessary. One of these kids needs a stable parent in their life, especially since Karen moved on in season 5. And we need to see Lucas and Peyton one more time before the end, with their baby.

This show started about a group of brothers, begrudgingly becoming friends, and trying to find their place in the world. Let's bring it out the way we came in this fall.