On Friday we went to see the Wiggles in Pittsburgh. This was our third such concert. Our first was in Huntington, West Virginia, where we stayed overnight. We we were so psyched in those days; little Kwam was barely 2 and we were so thrilled to be able to take our child to a children's concert. The pictures we took feature us all beaming brightly, despite being stuck in a huge traffic jam on the way there.
The second time was also in Pittsburgh. Kwamai had turned three, and Felicity was a very tiny person yet inside of me. I remember eating burgers before the show and trying to peel Kwamai off the walls of the bar-type place where we ate.
So, third time. It started badly, to be honest, with Kwamai making a big fuss over wanting every snack, complaining about our seats, about why we had to come to see the dumb Wiggles to begin with. I was overwhelmed as huge places and crowds and complainers tend to do for me. As soon as the Wiggles began to appear on stage, Felicity jumped for my lap, also overwhelmed in her own way. Her little feet repeatedly kicked at the people in front of us, not winning us any points with them (I'd love to read their blog about the event -- NOT). But then, Kwamai was really getting into it and was singing and shouting along with the show, finally prompting the dad in front of us to turn around and tell him to stop it. The seats were pretty packed together, so kid level in back meets ear level of adult in front.
The whole show seemed to go by fairly fast. The big change this time around is that the lead singer stepped down last fall and was replaced by his former stand-in. Sam just doesn't cut it as the new lead Wiggle, I have to say. He has a nice operatic voice, but he lacks the volume, the passion, the depth, the lower registers in his voice, not to mention the enthusiastic stage presence that Greg did. The rest of the Wiggles did fine trying to cover for him. And I don't know why, but it seemed the whole audience was extremely chatty. It was hard to hear the singers over the roar of the crowd talking/noise making. One expects some noise at a kids' concert, but I heard lots of adult conversations going on -- very distracting.
On the way home (with of course two sound sleepers) Erol and I discussed finding options in the future for this kind of outing. Kwamai would probably prefer going to a high school football game. Maybe buying a new Wiggles video, having Pizza or Chinese and a few friends over would make for a nice "inning", rather than an "outing" which seems to bring out the difficult in all of us -- except Erol of course!
The second time was also in Pittsburgh. Kwamai had turned three, and Felicity was a very tiny person yet inside of me. I remember eating burgers before the show and trying to peel Kwamai off the walls of the bar-type place where we ate.
So, third time. It started badly, to be honest, with Kwamai making a big fuss over wanting every snack, complaining about our seats, about why we had to come to see the dumb Wiggles to begin with. I was overwhelmed as huge places and crowds and complainers tend to do for me. As soon as the Wiggles began to appear on stage, Felicity jumped for my lap, also overwhelmed in her own way. Her little feet repeatedly kicked at the people in front of us, not winning us any points with them (I'd love to read their blog about the event -- NOT). But then, Kwamai was really getting into it and was singing and shouting along with the show, finally prompting the dad in front of us to turn around and tell him to stop it. The seats were pretty packed together, so kid level in back meets ear level of adult in front.
The whole show seemed to go by fairly fast. The big change this time around is that the lead singer stepped down last fall and was replaced by his former stand-in. Sam just doesn't cut it as the new lead Wiggle, I have to say. He has a nice operatic voice, but he lacks the volume, the passion, the depth, the lower registers in his voice, not to mention the enthusiastic stage presence that Greg did. The rest of the Wiggles did fine trying to cover for him. And I don't know why, but it seemed the whole audience was extremely chatty. It was hard to hear the singers over the roar of the crowd talking/noise making. One expects some noise at a kids' concert, but I heard lots of adult conversations going on -- very distracting.
On the way home (with of course two sound sleepers) Erol and I discussed finding options in the future for this kind of outing. Kwamai would probably prefer going to a high school football game. Maybe buying a new Wiggles video, having Pizza or Chinese and a few friends over would make for a nice "inning", rather than an "outing" which seems to bring out the difficult in all of us -- except Erol of course!
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