My friend Edith, the talented ticket-winner, scored herself and me two tickets to Norah Jones at the Fillmore for Friday, August 1, via Alice Radio's points program. (I don't think Edith has actually paid cash for concert tickets in years, if ever — and she's landed some great shows and kindly invited me along; my personal favorites are the Ben Harper show at Bimbo's and the Erasure accoustic concert at the W hotel".
This concert was good though. I like Norah Jones; think I heard "Don't Know Why" on the radio a few times too many and don't have the album, though I've heard it and thought it was pretty enough, but not something I had to own. I might be tempted to pick up the next one though — her band and some of her songs had a country music thing going on that I didn't expect but really enjoyed. She was charming and funny too, especially when she praised the burritos in the Mission, but complained that they were too big. "Oh I can eat the whole thing. I can eat it. But it's not a good thing. No no no, I don't mean anything disgusting..." (Edith and I snickered when she complained that the one she'd eaten that day was "an inch too long." Yes, we're grownups.)
The fly in the ointment for me was the woman we were standing next to in the audience. This always happens to me at a show — I get fixated on somebody annoying nearby. It's probably just my personality, yet this woman really was spectacularly obnoxious. It started with her cellphone which, counter to the instructions at the beginning of the show to turn off all cells and pagers, started flashing a bright blue light. Even with the stage lighting, the mirror ball above, etc. it really was distracting. But did she turn it off? Did she walk to the side to deal with her text message? No, of course not. She crouched down for about five minutes, phone furiously flashing all the while as she made a not very convincing attempt to cover it up.
Conversation finished, she got back to her appreciation of Norah. Which she showed by bopping along to the music, in the process also managing to bop me in the back of my legs with her purse while simultanously bopping Edith with her butt. I'm not sure how she did it, as Edith was standing to the front and right of her, and I was back and to the left. That takes talent. Talent which was not evident in her tuneless humming along to the songs. I'm not kidding. Norah would be up there singing and playing the piano, unaccompanied by her bandmates, and this woman was attempting to "harmonize" with her. It was truly painful. If she and her boyfriend hadn't left early, I probably would have lost it and said something (and it might have involved suggestions about where she could put her blinking cellphone and recommendations to take singing lessons). I know rudeness doesn't justify rudeness, but holy moly!
Why go to a concert if you're going to be doing everything but listen to the performance... and why spoil it for other people?
Actually though — she couldn't spoil it. It was too good a show, and her antics gave me something good to write about in my blog.
