Disappointed
by dorianh49 on 5/28/24Humphreys Concerts By the Bay - San DiegoRating: 2 out of 5I don’t go to many concerts, so I had been looking forward to this one. My wife, 2 young sons who were attending their very first concert ever, and I had seats at the second row from the very back, which in hindsight was a big mistake for an outdoor venue. I was relieved to hear an announcement right before the concert started that there was no talking or smoking allowed during the event. If only the actual attendants/ushers heard this announcement.
There was a mother/daughter duo right behind us, and the mother made it a point to announce to everyone within earshot that she was a HUGE Natalie Merchant fan who has attended MANY of her concerts. This person never stopped talking, throughout every song, about anything and everything that flowed through her brain. As she became more and more inebriated, she started throwing some poetic profanity into her diatribe. As her volume increased, her intelligibility decreased. A person or two nearby would ask her to stop, and to her credit she would apologize and quiet down for a few seconds, only to resume her stream-of-consciousness oration with renewed enthusiasm.
Not once did a single attendant talk to her. I’m a shy, very non-confrontational person, especially around those of the tipsy persuasion, but with about 4-5 songs remaining, I finally turned around and pleaded with her to stop talking, to which she clumsily put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a look that said, “I got you”.
Almost immediately, she had a sneezing fit that lasted almost two minutes, throughout which she repeated commented about how strange this occurrence was and how it had never happened before. After she stopped, another woman nearby mocked my previous attempt to quell her soliloquy by saying, “Can you please not sneeze throughout the entire concert? I’m just kidding!” This was highly amusing, and the two of them made sure to laugh and joke about this development for a few more minutes.
My family and I ended up walking out during the third encore song, having not heard one entire song without the inane ramblings of the woman behind us, or without smelling marijuana smoke wafting into our nostrils. It might have been an excellent concert, but I guess I’ll never know.