About to be Thunderstruck
We Continue Our Metal Journey (Day 40)
Yeah, it’s alright / We’re, doing fine!
I walk in the door, and Little Bean is waiting for me, hands behind her back.
“Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” she says. I close me eyes and she places something in my hands.
It’s a t-shirt. It’s a white, AC/DC t-shirt. I’m dumbfounded.
“For the concert,” she says. “I bought one for me and for Di as well.”
Turns out, it was her uncle who did the actual buying, but the idea and thought is sound.
In a world where kids her age are obsessing over Taylor Swift, my daughter is a metal head.
(Ok, listen, don’t come at me Taylor Swift fans. Taylor Swift is fine. But I’m an old rock n’ roll guy, so my daughter buying me AC/DC merch is pretty much the pinnacle of my fatherhood thus far.)
The fact that one of my daughter’s best friends is also a rock and roll kid is a bonus. And in a few days, the three of us are heading south to catch Thunderstruck, a popular AC/DC tribute band. The girls are, how can I put this gently, crazy excited.
We are going to head bang. Little Bean is already thinking about spiking up her hair. She asked me the other day, if they are going to be selling light-up devil horns.
She said, “Daddy, can you play Highway to H.E. Double Hockey Sticks?” Is that the most adorable thing?
Being a dad with some small amount of reporting experience and connections, I’ve managed to swing a pre-show meet and greet with the band.
When I was still a teenager, I saw AC/DC in Buffalo Memorial Auditorium and it remains one of the best rock and roll shows I've ever attended, a watershed moment in my youth and a core memory. I'm fairly certain, I lost about ten percent of my hearing that day, but it was worth it.
It's well and proper to mark our lives by singular events. We are, after all, only what we remember. That moment for me came before I understood jazz, before girlfriends, before I wrote, before travel and sushi and mountains.
Looking back at a band like AC/DC through the jaded eyes of an adult, after symphonies and poetry and all those trappings of refinement, it's easy to dismiss. But I won't. That time was critical, remains so, and to this day when AC/DC comes on the radio, I never change the channel.
Instead I just feel the boom of those cannons in my chest, and how it felt to leap to my feet and raise my hands to the rafters of that old building that no longer exists and let the euphoria of youth wash over me, exalting in simple chords that made me feel free.
I want the girls to feel that. I want them to sweat, and feel the music as well as hear it. (In their case, they’ll wear earplugs!) I want them to let go, and jump and sing, and feel protected and free. Will they? Will they be exhausted after the first hour? Will a tribute band scratch the itch of seeing the real AC / DC? I don’t know.
But we’re going to find out and it’s going to be loud.
WHAT’S AHEAD: You still have time to vote on our upcoming “You Tell Us What To Write About Series.” Here’s a link to the post where you can vote: Vote on What I Should Write About. There’s been many votes so far, but believe it or not, we’re sitting in a three way tie as of this writing. Go vote so we can have a clear winner!
Then, tomorrow, we’ll begin that series and see how it goes! The plan is for the series to take us right up to our big concert and we’ll be coming back to report on that as well. So an exciting week ahead. For now go vote and I’ll see you tomorrow!
See you there!!
Table 6