Low Cost Celtic Concerts In the Bay Area? You Bethcha!

For the next five weeks, something special is coming to the Bay Area’s back yard.  The Northern California Renaissance Faire starts its five weekend run at Casa de Fruta near Hollister on the 152 east of Gilroy.  If you’ve been to the World Famous Gilroy Garlic Festival you know where that is.  The faire site is 15 minutes east of Gilroy and only a little over an hour from San Francisco.  It takes longer to get to the Sonoma Wine Country.  http://www.norcalrenfaire.org/index.html

For the second year in a row, the Northern California Renaissance Faire is offering after-hours Celtic rock concerts that are included in your ticket price on each Saturday night of the run.

This weekend, Tempest will be playing.  September 25th will be Culanns Hounds, October 2nd, the Young Dubliners will rock the stage, October 9th Molly’s Revenge will be appearing for the first time at Casa and the season will end with the Wicked Tinkers.  These concerts take place in the Joust arena.  Gates open at 5:45pm and the concert starts at 6pm.  http://www.norcalrenfaire.org/concerts.html

Many of these bands charge $30 – $60 for a performance at various venues throughout the country.  However, for $25 an adult (and children 12 and under FREE at all times) you get a whole day of fun, entertainment and get the concert thrown in as a bonus after the faire closes.  I can’t think of a better deal for a date or for a family outing.  The cost is comparable with admission to a county fair or two movie admissions.  Honestly, your value is TONS better than watching a double feature of piranha 3-D and I’m Still Here (that masturbatory dreck about Joaquin Phoenix’s disintegrating life and “rap” career).

While you can sit in the bleachers, standing & dancing in the sand filled arena is the best.  Kids have a lot more freedom, can dance off that sugar energy and the adults can get up close with the band.  After the hour-long concert, the audience is let directly into the parking lot so exiting is easy.

I highly recommend this as a great way to spend an afternoon or a weekend ($35 for a weekend pass).  Tell them the Queen sent you!

P!nk Concert & Why Asshats Need to Be Smarter

Here is a Classic Column from September because I am trying to catch up on new material with an LA trip and book edits happening.  Hopefully I will have more Young Geeks in Love material tomorrow!  In the meantime – enjoy!

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So as you know Molly, Mayhap, Krystal & myself went to see P!nk at the HP Pavilion in San Jose on Thursday. This was for her Funhouse tour and let me say she is just amazing! A great, high energy show. Ting Tings opened for her and they were really good as well.

So what was the rumble about? Well first I should explain a few things. P!nk has a large female fan base and a great percentage of those gals are lesbians. I would estimate that the audience make-up of the near sell out crowd at the HP was 70% female (30% of that number lesbian), 15% the fab gay boys and 15% straight men most in the company of a female.

So while the majority of the audience is seated in the stands, we are down in the pit and are pretty close to the stage. We go to the real bar where we can get cocktails (not the crappy beer at the stands on the concourse) and Molly buys us double Kamakazis. So back to the pit, trying not to spill our drinks and get a place to stand.

Did I mention I was wearing 4″ heels? Remember when I was trying to figure out what to wear? Note to self: next time wear comfortable shoes. So we are drinking, waiting for the show and guess who shows up to harsh our mellow? Drunk, patronizing, straight guy.

Gentlemen – here is another moment to learn something. Pay attention especially if this sounds like you. Do you…
* Think you are Gods gift to women
* Get all smarmy when you are drunk and hit on women
* Try to impose your will on women
* Are condesending and think there is nothing wrong with that?

Guess what? You are a boorish asshat and we hate you. Yes, it is true. Now you can get away with this in lots of bars or a No Doubt concert but a P!nk concert where the vast majority of the audience is women, a great many in no mood for you and a vast amount quite willing to nail your penis to the floor with a spike heeled shoe, you should pay attention and learn from this guy’s mistake.

What was it? Messing with Molly & me.

So women have a sense of personal space and are generally more civilized in large crowds of this sort than an equal amount of straight men. I blame hormones and bad breeding. Men at concerts tend to try to smash their way to the edge of the stage, through the people standing in the pit, with zero care that the rest of us have been standing there for hours. They don’t give a shit. They are drunk, they feel entitled and aren’t use to being told No. Perhaps their parents were the original culprits. I don’t care. KNOCK IT OFF!

So we are standing in a line: Mayhap, Molly, myself and Krystal. This jerk off tries to push his way between Molly & Mayhap and then Molly & me. Molly told him in no uncertain terms to back off. Instead of apologizing and backing off (the CORRECT answer), he kept trying where I told him to back the frack off. Then he got all asshatty by saying he likes “fiesty” women. Really? At that point I had spike heeled shoes in my hand I could put through his head and started remarking on the miniscule size of his John Thomas. This is when the lesbians in front of us started taking notice. Dudes – know your crowd. If you think Molly & I are bitches, these sisters will rip your personality right off and grill it like a vienna sausage. Honestly 100,000 females that are sick & tired of being threatened and condescended to can be a dangerous thing.

Finally he did back off with his junk intact. What was sad was that he had a woman with him that was shaking her head and mouthing “Sorry” while this was going on. What I want to know is why is this woman such a door mat? If any man did this when he was out with me, not only would I punch him in the junk myself, but I would no longer by going out with/married to him when the sun came up. This type of passive behaviour just lets asshats like this think their antics are “Cute” and OK. They’re not.

Once this guy was gone, P!nk came on and all was right with the world. It was an amazing concert. She is such a fantastic performer and I just love her songs. I kept thinking – “Don’t sing so loud, you can’t lose your voice this weekend.”

Thanks to Krystal for introducing me to P!nks music and to Molly for showing me such a great time that no asshat in the world could spoil. It was a wonderful evening.