You only get so much free time during a week, and when someone invites you to attend a charity concert on your one free day, you sort of want to say, “No thanks, thats OK…” but there are a few situations where you just take one for the team. Today was one of them.
Well, it is a good thing there was a typhoon blowing today. Otherwise I might be ticked off that I missed a good sailing day for nothing.The rain was pissing down today, so, from the start, I had a bit of a headache and I wasnt really into going. I was supposed to meet the people who invited me at 2PM outside the venue. I rushed like hell to get there on time, only to find nobody there. After waiting the socially acceptable 10 minutes, a quick phone call filled me in on the fact that the folks I was waiting for wouldnt be there for another 20 minutes. Jeez!
The actual concert was more like a local band playing in a nightclub. Except the local was local UGANDA and the nightclub was…well….it wasnt night…so I dont know..I dont want to throw any stones there just yet. It was a charity gig to raise money for building a school somewhere in Uganda. Trust me, those poor Ugandan kids are going to have to wait a long time for their school.
The warm up band was so so. They played quite a few Beatles songs, but their style had me thinking I was in the lounge of a Holiday Inn somewhere in upstate N.Y. shorty before closing on a dead Thursday evening.
Then the main event. Two guys with African drums took to the stage and tried to explain that drums were used to communicate in East Africa. Then they began to pound away. They were good, but after a bit, it seemed that most of what they had to say was lost in translation. When the banging stopped, there was a slideshow of Uganda. Lets just say they need a bit more than just a school over there.
And then another band came out and started playing a cross between reggae and African music. The audience was quiet and I know for sure they were all praying each number would be the last. Mercilessly, the band played on and on and on.
Finally the last song finished. No one asked for an encore, but the band came out and played another song anyway, just to piss people off, I guess. We couldnt have run out of there any sooner. The friend who invited me kept apologizing, and I kindly said, “Thats OK, it wasnt like I was missing a sunny day or anything like that”…..
But I swear , watching raindrops bounce off the patio, thru the windows of my air-conditioned livingroom would have been a much better way to kill an afternoon.
Next time someone invites me to a charity event, I think I will just hand over a few bucks and then go ahead and do something I like… even if that means listening to the sound of falling rain.
