Slices of Life: Beginning to See Red

By Lisa Gibalerio

There was a time, in the not too distant past, when attending a concert involved a few basic steps. One would learn of a date when tickets to a concert would become available. A group of friends would get dropped off, wait in line, and then buy tickets. On the night of the concert, we’d catch a ride to the concert, watch the show, and eventually get picked up and returned home.

As the eighties morphed into the nineties, the only element that changed was how the tickets were obtained: showing up at the venue was replaced with telephone orders and, later, online procurement.

Somewhere between my first concert – The Cars, Providence, 1981 – and my daughters’ recent outing – Taylor Swift, Gillette Stadium, July 2013 – things have certainly changed.

It all started about two months ago when my ten-year-old presented me with her “concert preparation wish list.”  That list, back in May, was reasonable:

1) poster board

2) glow sticks

Sure, I thought, I can handle that.  

“But why?” I asked her.

“We need to make a sign for Taylor. If we get noticed, we’ll get invited to Club Red.”

To me, this sounded like something Karl Marx might host, but I let that thought pass.

In time, the list grew:

3) red Keds

4) poster board lights

5) red earrings 

6) red nail polish

Hmm, a specific brand/color of sneakers required for a concert?  Is this lemming-like conformance merely a form of innocent admiration of Taylor Swift’s style by my daughter and her friends – or is it the insidious influence of corporate sponsorship and the manipulation of social media in the form of Instagram and YouTube?

By last week, as the concert loomed and the days were being counted down with more urgency, new items rapidly appeared:

7) red sunglasses

8) a red tutu

9) backup batteries (for poster board lights)

10) red-tinted hair gel

11) red sox

Right about now, I was referring to the Taylor Swift concert using adjectives that cannot be reprinted here. The red tutu, in any case, I nixed immediately.

The poster board lights, by the way, became almost possible to locate.

“I’ve been to Michael’s, two Targets, Jo-Ann Fabrics, several CVS’s, Building 19, and Ocean State Job Lot,” another mom caught up in the Swift maelstrom lamented.

We did find them.

It took hours for my daughter and her friends to create the poster board signs and attach the lights. True, they were happily and creatively ensconced, but this did not change my attitude overall, it merely made me swear less.

On the day of the show – this is last Saturday we are talking about, a beautiful day calling more for a trip to the beach than spending the day indoors – my daughter and her friends began getting ready before lunch.  I should point out that they were scheduled to leave the house around 4:00.

Several hours in, with smudges of red nail polish, red hair gel, and red lipstick everywhere, I received an odd request:

“Mommy, can you paint black kitten whiskers on all of us?”

“Why?” I whimpered.

“For Meredith,” she replied.  I chose not to ask for elaboration. I applied the whiskers, wished them all a fun evening, and promptly fled not only the red-tainted house, but the state of Massachusetts as well.

But the clutches of Swiftmania would not let me go that easily. As I sped down Route 95 South with my firstborn, finally free from the madness in Belmont, I found myself caught in a massive traffic jam: Taylor’s fans were flocking toward Foxborough, and I was trapped for another half hour!

But once I put a safe distance between me and TSwift’s Red Tour madness, I was able to breathe more easily, and contemplate the only interaction Ric Ocasek had had with his audience:

“Hello, Providence.”

There’s something to be said for simplicity.