I Love Them, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

My family is REALLY into The Beatles. Ask anyone. We listened to the Beatles when we cleaned the house, which was 24/7. We were always cleaning. And always rocking out to The Beatles. The Beatles were on a continuous replay in my little Honda Accord in high school. When I ran for student government, my theme was The Beatles. In my speech, my friend and I dressed like the Beatles and sang "Hold Me, Love Me," but changed the words to "Vote for her, yeah, yeah," complete with audience-participatory clapping. All of my posters were Beatle-themed. I'd like to think that I won because of my Beatles theme. :)

When I was in high school, a Beatles tribute band called "1964"came to I.F., and my sister, Nat, and I jumped all over that. We got front-row seats. Obviously, a lot of middle-aged people came, too. We kept wanting to stand up and dance and sing, and the middle-aged people didn't take too kindly to that. We got tired of getting yelled at, so we decided to go down to the orchestra pit to stand and sing and dance. There were tons of people down there with us. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun. A total party. The best concert ever.

So when Nat called me and said they were coming to Rexburg, I was like, "OFCOURSEIWANTTOGOGETTICKETSNOW!"

We called Lex, who is obviously a huge Beatles fan, too, and she came up from Poky.

Here we are, pre-concert:

And that was pre-haircut, too - sorry for the confusion. Do you like my new white jacket? I'm in love with it. I got it for my birthday.

So these guys are fantastic. They have studied all this footage of the Beatles from those early years, and they sing like them, talk like them, and even have their little movements down to a T. The guy who plays Paul obviously plays left-handed base. And he does that little head-jiggle thing that Paul always did. The guy who plays John kind of spreads his legs out wide, like John did, and has his guitar cinched up high. Just like John. The guy who plays Ringo does that head-tilting thing to one side when he plays drums. It's awesome.

They only play the stuff from the earlier Beatles years, which is fine. My uncle has been to a Beatles tribute band concert where they go and change clothes and wigs and sing the songs from the whole time - the Sgt. Pepper's era, the Abbey Road era, etc. That would be cool to see. But I adore alllll Beatles songs (except maybe "Come Together." That song's description of the guy's joo-joo eyeballs, toe-jam football... the whole, "hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease..." makes my skin crawl. It's too much for my OCD sensibilities.), so it was awesome to partake of any kind of Beatles-ness.

So we were sitting in our seats, kind of seat-dancing, singing all the words to the songs out loud, having fun. There was this "designated dancing area" down from us on the main gym floor. I smiled while I watched some people go down there to boogie, thinking of that concert in high school, and thinking, "Gosh, it's too bad that I'm so old. I would totally do that." I'm telling you, this "turning 34" thing really hit me hard this year. It's been this huge crisis of "what is appropriate for people in their 30s"? . It's got me all confused.

After a particularly amazing rendition of Twist and Shout, Lex and Nat and I kind of looked at each other and yelled, "We are going down there to DANCE!!!"

I'm so glad we did.

That's me, on the left. Do you like my cute shirt? Pooh got it for me for my birthday. It is sooooo soft. I love it.

Nat on the left, Lex on the right.

I have no idea what I'm doing in that picture. It's funny.

It was just so fun to be just me. Not "Mom." We sang, we danced, we made fun of people... it was awesome. There's this one kid who was doing these crazy, spastic dance moves. I was laughing and laughing. And there were cheesy BYU-I people on cheesy dates and trying to do cheesy ballroom dancing moves. And there was a daddy who took his daughters down to the dance floor and danced with them just like my dad used to always dance with us when we were little.

At one point, they played "In My Life," and they told us to call our loved ones and let them listen to the song. So Nat, Lex, and I all called our significant others and let them listen. Pete immediately hung up (he hates the Beatles!!), which made me chuckle.

They played "Yellow Submarine" at one point, which wasn't really in that early era, but I'm so glad they did. You know that part, when Paul is kind of yelling in the background? "Every one of us... that's all we need... sky of blue... sea of green... in our yellow.... submarine... ah-ha!" Everyone in the audience was yelling that part. It was so fun.

When I was little, I used to call the local radio stations to request Yellow Submarine, and they never, ever would play it. I didn't realize that a station that is called the "New Hit Music Channel" wouldn't play an oldie.

Toward the end of the show, everyone just kind of rushed up to the stage, fire code be darned. We were all squished up in the aisles, dancing and sweating and smiling. We all cheered for an encore when they were done, and they came out and played four songs in a row. This cheesy guy who was there on a cheesy date with a cheesy girl turned around and yelled to her, "This is totally blowing my MIND!" It was funny.

Afterwards, we all stood in line to go pee and discussed getting my hair cut. This girl standing near us offered her opinions on the matter. It was good fun. I've decided that I'm really good at talking to strangers. It's a talent. :)

Anyways, I'm soooo glad we went, and I am sooooo glad we decided to dance.