Sometimes my partner in crime and I think we have great ideas and we can do it all. I think we also forget what ‘It’s only 5 hours away’ really means. Friday night I headed down to her place in Pennsylvania, we got to bed early and woke up at 5:30 to do the 5k / fun walk for Four Diamonds at Hershey Park. After completing the race we went back to her place, changed and headed in the car for the 5 hours to Norfolk and then attempted to nap in the car. (Which really didn’t work because we ended up in a noisy parking garage that was apparently free but we paid $10.50 before leaving)
Upon arrival at The Norva, we were told there was no separate line/entrance for ADA and it was “first come, first serve” I am not sure how you can tell people that it’s too bad so sad that they are disabled but they no longer have room to accommodate you… but whatever. We hopped in the members only line, got inside only to be told that Maribeth might not be able to stay near me in the ADA section. WHAT? (Also the fact that it was already “full” and the general line had yet to go in was pretty crappy) They put me in the “best seat in the house” according to our security friend Nolan (who was awesome and helped me up on the high chair and everything) and Maribeth stood next to me. Then one of the other security guys came over and told Maribeth that she couldn’t stand next to me and could go stand behind the section a good 5 feet away from where I was. She explained she didn’t drive all the way from PA to go to a show with me to not end up next to me… and the guy told her “If I make an exception for you, I have to make an exception for everyone. But I’ll make an exception for you” What? We couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or what but then he told her that no, she could stay there. WHY bother arguing and telling her no then, if it in the end you were just going to let her stay? Why do these venues have to get us all riled up over being able to have a safe spot and worry us for no reason? (This isn’t a one-off thing – getting an ADA spot is very often very stressful and it shouldn’t be that way!)
The great thing about this tour is that there is no opening act, so Hanson took the stage shortly after 8pm. Our spot put us just above Zac so we were staring at Isaac and Taylor’s back most of the night but it was a cool perspective because we could see the crowd like Hanson does during the show! When Zac and Taylor swapped spots for “Juliet”, Taylor spotted us up in our spot and ended up singing a few songs to us. They have been switching up the set a lot more in the states than they did in Australia and I was glad to sneak a peak at the setlist before the show and see that ‘with you in your dreams’ was NOT on it – but that Runaway Run and Save Me were! Zac was sick – I have never seen him sweat so much (and he actually wrung out his shirt at the end of the show on the stage and it was gross) so we opted to not hang out by the bus after the show and instead head to our crash pad for the night.
It was a great show to start our tour “run” on (if you can call just weekend shows a run) and we were looking forward to the members only event and concert in MD the next night.
