We didn't decide to go to the James Taylor concert until most of the good seats were gone, but we have had great seats and nosebleed seats before, and we have had an excellent time at Verizon Arena, so we took a shot. We were in the nosebleed section to the right of the stage
and had a good sight line, but we knew we were in trouble from the beginning, when James Taylor came out and started talking and it sounded like wah, wah, wah. At first I thought maybe a lack of oxygen to my brain from the high altitude was distorting my hearing so I checked with the 30 something person behind me and they couldn't understand anything either. Once I asked the question, everyone around us chimed in that they had no clue what was being said either. I guess everyone else thought their hearing was going too, and were afraid to say anything.
If you knew the songs they were singing, you knew what they were saying, and if by chance they had James Taylor on the big screen
when he was talking you could lip-read and possibly know what he was saying, but as the rest of the audience laughed at his commentary, those of us in the cheap seats, just had to nod along as if we had a clue to what was funny or not! It was a bit disappointing. There was a general discussion of where to move to hear better. If you went down 15 rows you could understand them, but unfortunately those seats were taken. A few moved around but kept moving back. Some just left. At one point our row was full from end to end, when we left there were 4 of us.
Clay and I enjoy going to concerts, and possibly reliving our youth. Some of the recent concerts of bands or groups that were popular when we were in high school or college have seemed more like a geriatric convention than a concert, but this one had a good mix of ages--at least where we were. It was a pretty sedate crowd though--I saw only one or two couples getting happy and that was mainly when Bonnie Raitt sang.
James Taylor sang many of our old favorites, at possibly a bit slower beat than before, and he actually sang some we (or at least I) had never heard before--so I had to make up words for those! Too bad it wasn't like karaoke with the words printed on the screen. Bonnie Raitt was the opening act and I only know 3 of her songs and she sang one I knew.
I could move to the beat, but it was like they were speaking a foreign language.
It still was fun hanging out with Clay, and another silver lining was we ran into a MG who works the arena and were sharing our woes with her and she got us a golf cart ride to our car! So a happy ending after all. So We've got a friend!