Monday, May 11, 2009

almost woodstock...

You may or may not know that my favorite band is STAIND. I adore them. Have considered running away and marrying them. The whole band. Not just the hot-n-angsty lead singer. No. The entire band. It's not polygamy if you think of the band as a singular entity...

Anyway, one of the items on my 40 Things to do at 40 list (y'all do know I'm 40 right?) is to see STAIND in concert.

That concert was this weekend. They came to MudEdgefest along with Hurt, Drowning Pool, Chevelle, and Slipknot.

It has rained here in central Arkansas for damn near 2 solid weeks, so we are pretty much floating away. This concert was outdoors. And it thunderstormed and poured rained most of Saturday.

I did not care. I was NOT going to miss my most favoritest band ever on earth. Rain be damned.

So I put on my high-waters, my duck-boots and wore my cutest smile and we set off for MudEdgefest.
See how cute my smile is? Srsly, I was workin' the cute Saturday night.
The traffic was horrendous. I was getting texts from my friend Griff who had been stuck in traffic for more than two hours. He was getting ready to give up. But I was determined to get to the concert. I didn't care if they concert coordinators didn't have a good contingency plan for 40 days of rain. I would swim through the swamp if I had to. I was going to see my future husbands favorite band live.

We decided to bypass the traffic and go down to the next exit to see if we could come in the back way. We found a place to park and set out on the hike to the cow pasture.
It was a huge procession. But it wasn't raining anymore and the temp was perfect, so we made the most of it.

After about a mile and a half, the procession came to a halt. The road was completely flooded out.

Knee deep in some places

I was undeterred. Yes it was swamp water. Yes it was disgusting. Yes I was slightly afraid a water moccasin would come and take me away.

But I didn't care. I wanted to see STAIND!

So we trudged forward. And not long after the swamp we arrived at the farm. And this is where the fun began.

There was mud:

And even more mud:

and even some mud 'rasslin:

and the obligatory concert mullet:

And then there was STAIND:


Totally worth the drama of getting there. So glad I went. The adventure was fabulous. Plus, I was rocking the cute-n-muddy look. As was my oldest son...

Have you ever wanted to do something so badly that you endured extreme circumstances to achieve your goal?

11 comments:

  1. In a word: childbirth.

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  2. I like to tell people I was conceived at Woodstock but it's a total fib.

    That looks like a BLAST Mel!!

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  3. Dude, that looks like a rockin' time!

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  4. Wow, Mel, I'm so impressed!!! You are a true fan!

    The only "extreme circumstances" I've gone through recently to achieve my goal is eating lots of greasy fast food so I can get Star Trek toys in Burger King kid's meals. ;-)

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  5. That's so awesome!!! I'm glad you had fun--and that's a memory you'll never forget. :D

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  6. Wow! Glad the snakes left you alone. What a story.

    Years ago my husband bought tickets for The Rolling Stones Steal Wheels tour, also plane tickets to San Francisco and a room at a posh boutique hotel. We were so excited. (This was shortly after the horrible earthquake where the freeway fell down.) We took the BART (metro) into Oakland. When we got out of the concert there was confusion of the masses and we almost lost each other and I nearly got smashed to death during that horrendous mass exit. At least one concert goer was killed. The things we do just to see a band. I don't think I would have run away with Mick Jagger though. Side note: We made our son Max later that night.

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  7. um...even if you count the band as one, it would still be bigamy. You know, on account of the husband you already have and stuff.

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  8. Gwen that's just a technicality. LOL

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  9. I can positively say there is no band that I would have trekked through that water then that mud for. However, if you were at the end of all that, then I'd consider it:)

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  10. Amanda Brice9:42 AM

    I'm with Maria. I don't do rain or mud. LOL! Glad you had fun!!!!!

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  11. That is some dedication to a band.

    I ran a half marathon. err. yeah that's about it. I got nothing.

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