I’ll warn you in advance: this post will most likely be a bit of a ramble. I tried to come up with a cohesive theme, but it wasn’t happening. So, I’ll just tell you about something we did recently, and leave it at that.

Not long ago, Chad and I took C. to his first “real concert” — you know, one held in a fairly large city, in a significant venue, with thousands of people in attendance. Not a regular occurrence for us. As a family, we tend to be homebodies. We like our house, we tend to go to bed early, we are exhausted by the thought of being in a crowd of people. But every once in a while, we like to do something exciting. And we figure that we should expose our kids to some culture occasionally — even if it’s just our brand of “culture.” C.’s nine, so it was about time to take him somewhere other than Panera or the bookstore.

We warned C. that the concert would be loud. We warned him it would be crowded. But we assured him that he’d be glad he came. He wasn’t convinced. On our way to the concert, I asked him if he was excited and he replied, “Not really.” Yes, our oldest son is a bit of an Eeyore. He’s always either sure everything will not go well, or he’s just trying not to get his hopes up, only to have them dashed.

C. and Chad before the concert.

We needn’t have worried, though. It didn’t take long for the excitement to kick in.

We made our way downtown, parked near the arena, found our seats (after being mis-seated only once by the seating-attendant-type-people). The lights dimmed, and out came the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Some people might call the Trans-Siberian Orchestra “symphonic rock.” I prefer to think of them as “80′s Hair Band Takes over the Symphony.” Close enough. Let’s just say that there’s a string section, some wonderful voices, and a hefty dose of keyboards, drums, guitars, and even a jammin’ electric fiddle. Perhaps you’ve seen this video of some crazy industrious man who orchestrated his household Christmas lights to TSO’s Wizards in Winter? That’ll give you a taste for their music. My favorite song of theirs, however, is Christmas Eve in Sarajevo. Good stuff.

And a TSO concert is not just music. There were lasers, strobe lights, flames, fireworks, “floating” platforms, and even snow. A true multimedia event.

C….was in awe. The music was good, and the pyrotechnics and other special effects put it over the top for him. I’d say he appreciated his little taste of rockin’ culture.

After three hours, we made our way slowly out to the car, surrounded by 10,000 or so people whose ears were ringing, just like ours. As we passed one couple, the guy nodded toward C. and said, “Was this his first time? I bet he loved it.” I nodded and told him that it was the first time any of us had been to a TSO concert and that it was great. He looked shocked that we weren’t yearly attenders. “This is our third time,” he said. “And it’s always awesome.” A few more words, and we were back to pushing our way through the crowd.

We had never met that couple, but there was some kind of instant camaraderie. A mutual appreciation for the band laid a foundation, if only for one little conversation. The funny thing is, this was a couple that I might have been slightly intimidated by in any other setting. I’ll just say they were a bit rough around the edges. And I’m sure that we looked pretty much like major geeks to them. But we were both at the concert, so we both deemed each other O.K.

[Since the concert, I've been thinking that, sadly, I bet there's more interaction between total strangers at concerts than between total strangers at churches. Yet the commonality of being in God's house should surely result in a stronger initial bond, no? You'd think, yet I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to 'keeping to myself' when I should be reaching out.]

Because I followed the rules to not take any pictures during the concert — unlike the many people causing flashes throughout the audience and also unlike the entire row in front of us who held up their camera phones the whole time (which became slightly annoying after a while, I must admit — I kept hoping their phone batteries would die) — I have no pictures of the concert to share with you. But the three of us are unlikely to forget the excitement or enjoyment that we shared that evening.

Now to plan our next cultural event… And hopefully it won’t take us nine more years to get it on the schedule.