Actually, this is a true story. Late summer, 1978. The little girl was me. I was six. Bob Seger was my most favorite musician of all. I loved to listen to my parents' records, especially Bob Seger ones. If they didn't want to listen to music, I would beg to be allowed to plug the headphones into the turntable and listen all by myself while everyone else watched TV or did other things.
One evening,my parents were going to Pine Knob to see Bob Seger. I didn't know this until they dropped my brother and I off at our grandparents (whom we loved to spend the night with), and Grandma asked who was doing the concert that night. Bob Seger, they told her.
Bob Seger! That changed everything. I did not want to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa. I wanted to go see Bob Seger! Those of you who are parents can imagine the scene that ensued: stubborn 6 year old girl not wanting her parents to go to the Bob Seger concert without her.
In fact, I still remember chasing my parents' car down the (not terribly busy) road beside Grandpa and Grandma's house, crying and yelling for them to come back and take me to the concert, Grandma running behind trying to catch me before another car came along and ran me over!!! You could say it was one of those events that leaves a lasting impression on a child's life.
Fast forward 41 years. Historically, DH and I have not been concert goers. Our lifestyle and budget hasn't included many live performances of anything, especially music, unless our children were the ones performing. I can count on one hand how many 'real' concerts I've been to in my life.
Bob Seger went on tour again this year. His final one, it seems (or, at least that's how it was billed, and at 74, you wonder how many concerts he has left to sing). Did I want to go? Badly. Extremely badly. Did we have money to go? No. This summer, this whole year actually, has seemed like one surprise financial challenge after another. So I resigned myself that I would never see Bob Seger in concert.
But then something happened, that at the time seemed completely unrelated to concert going. DH had an unusual work assignment that had him out of the country for nearly three weeks. And there wasn't a whole lot of lead time to prep for it. Saying that I found this sudden (and, at the time, length undefined) departure traumatic would be an understatement. We're not talking a normal work trip that has him 2-3 time zones away for a week or maybe two. We're talking other side of the world, days and nights reversed, not sure when he'll be back or if we'll even be able to talk on the phone daily.
Well, we got through that. Maybe someday I'll even write a post about the experience. And once DH came back, and spent about four days recuperating (while maintaining his normal work day) from both the jet lag and the ungodly long work hours put in while in this other country, he found out he'd earned some extra special recognition at work. Some sort of points redeemable for goods kind of thing.
Here's where these two seemingly unrelated stories blend.
One of the options for points redemption was tickets to the concert venue DTE Energy Music Theater. Formerly, in my childhood, known as Pine Knob. Can you guess where this is going?
YES!! DH and I went to the Bob Seger concert on our wedding anniversary in June! For free!! (Well, for a lot of those "you done good" points he'd gotten at work.)
We had awesome seats, the below picture was from where I stood, not even zoomed in. We were that close to the stage.
I had just the most fantastic time. And a long held dream of mine came true. I might not be 6 (I'm 47), but for a while, I was a little girl watching her most favorite musician--he has always remained my #1-- on stage and listening to him sing (and me signing along) the songs of my youth. What an unexpected dream come true, in the strangest of plot twists.
I got to see Bob. At Pine Knob.
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