A Florence Family Experience

Another incredible weekend in the books, and one we’ve been looking forward to for a lonnggg time. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a devout Florence and the Machine fan and have been since her first album. She used to make the trek to Milwaukee to perform and even started by performing in the humble Rave/Eagles Ballroom, but these days she’s far too popular for any of that. I truly hope her Milwaukee days aren’t behind her, and every year I hold out hope that she’ll be announced as a Summerfest headliner.

Once she announced her US tour dates, it was just a matter of which show we’d end up going to and buying the tickets. My best friend Katie and I have now seen four shows together and I’ve seen five total. The fifth was a crazy trip down to Bonnaroo with Tim, Caitlin, and Sarah (who’s made an appearance or two on the blog). That was their first time seeing her perform and they’ve been hooked. We added a few other first timers to our group for round, including our brother Nick, Katie’s younger sister Sam and Caitlin’s friend Drew.

Here’s where I’ll stop and interject that our average group height was probably around 6’4. Let that sink in for a moment. We had nine of us total and Sarah was the only one under 5’11. I’ll also mention that we had standing floor section “seats.” Guess who weren’t the most popular people attending.

This might be an unpopular post/opinion but I think some people get a little confused on how concerts work, especially the standing section. Everyone logs in and pays the exact same price on Ticketmaster – or if they paid more because they got screwed by a resale price, you get the gist. Then you read the information on the site about pertinent information regarding the concert including what time it starts and what time the doors open, etc.

From there, you can make a series of choices about how your concert experience will go. The first of those being, what time you’ll arrive at said concert. You might factor in who the opening act is, and that’s a fair decision especially if you checked their music out and it didn’t appeal to you.

So let me rewind for a moment and tell you how our experience played out. Being that we all have an immense love for Florence and the Machine, we knew that we had to arrive there before the “show” began, even knowing full well we didn’t want to see the opener. We walked into the floor section and joined the back of the crowd to settle in.

As we waited patiently for her through the opener, other people continue to arrive and obviously it began to fill up. Most people had the appropriate response when arriving and filled in behind others who had arrived there first, while others took the more aggressive approach of trying to fight their way closer. Several people even went so far as to tap our group on the shoulder and ask if they could stand in front of us because their 5’2 girlfriend couldn’t see.

After several times of this happening it became clear that people feel that tall people should stand in the back of the concert. To this I reply: we paid the same amount for the ticket, and in our capitalistic society we controlled what we could control. Do not expect to have a great view of a concert when other people devoted more time to ensuring their view was better. It’s entitled thinking that you should get to walk in and move everyone else out of the way. When you woke up this morning you were aware you were 5’2 and probably at a disadvantage dealing with floor seats regardless.

We love you short and average height people – but get to the concert sooner, or at least don’t take it out on us! We got to the concert and stood in what was the current back of the crowd, and stood three people deep, we didn’t make a wide wall. This is your gentle or probably not so gentle PSA, that there will probably be at least one tall person at the concert you’re attending, and they can’t do anything about their height. They are also there to enjoy the concert.

So, onto the good stuff, the concert attire. There’s always several factors involved with dressing for a concert especially in the Midwest’s with season changes. Knowing the night would be chilly, we knew we had to grab for our leather jackets. Caitlin snagged her Y.A.S. tall leather jacket and layered it over a Rolling Stone’s t-shirt she actually found at American Eagle. She paired it with her distressed denim from Gap and some Converse to keep it comfortable as we knew we’d be standing for hours.

As you can see we pretty much stick to a “concert uniform” especially in colder weather. My version was my Long Tall Sally leather jacket I’ve referenced before, which is cut slightly different than the moto jacket versions we also have, and completely classic. I wore my highwaisted Asos ripped black denim with a leopard print crop top I found from Zara while in New York. I also stuck to the Converse because we’re all for comfort.