46 Concert Shirts, More than $1500 spent, Infinite Memories Made

Last week when I was blessed enough to go see Jenny Lewis live I asked my husband to find my old Rilo Kiley shirt. He said, "Man you have a lot of concert shirts. Like, a LOT."
The light bulb went off. I should count them! This should be blog-worthy.

I spent Saturday piling them. There were two piles: Ones currently in rotation, ones in storage. I counted:

In the two piles I had 46 concert shirts from concerts I had attended and ONE a friend bought me because I couldn't afford to go see Blink 182 at the time. 47 Concert shirts! FORTY-SEVEN!

At anywhere from $25.00 to $40.00 a piece, that is over $1,500.00 in live music fun and memorabilia well spent, in my personal opinion.

As soon as I went through the old clothes a massive wave of memories flooded me. I remembered the show, the set, who opened, that I was in the front and so on and so forth. Some shows I didn't remember much because I drank in excess which fogged things up, but that was also another memory in and of itself.

They all sat on my bed; so many of them! I didn't even know how I had ever fit in some of them. There they were, though in all their glory. It was the perfect picture of my twenties and an illustration of my coming of age.

I went to punk rock shows, alternative shows, indie shows, you name it. I was picky too, the bigger the venue the less it appealed with only a few exceptions. I had shirts for Journey, Foreigner, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan to name a few. I knew a roadie for Journey and saw them 2 or 3 times one summer. Foreigner was a Florida show when I wrote for Creative Loafing. I took my dad to see Neil Diamond in the nosebleed seats of the RoseGarden arena in Portland Oregon. Bob Dylan was a large-ish theater with my sisters and brothers in law but we didn't sit together. They all hated it and I just thought "Holy shit, Bob Dylan is up there right now! BOB DYLAN."

The Matches, Reel Big Fish, Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, Juliette and the Licks, Cake, The Decemberists, Ben Kweller, Hanson, Flogging Molly, Death Cab for Cutie, Dropkick Murphy's, Mest! I'm unsure of whom I'm leaving out, oh! Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and that shirt was SIGNED.

My husband and I started reminiscing and filling in blanks for each other. We laughed about some, got a little nostalgic and sad about others. Every shirt was a memory of an epic night. We drove from Eugene to Portland more times than I can count. We drove to Washington before for a show. We never had money for new Vans slip-ons and paid bills late, but we found money for concert tickets and food and gas to get us there!

I still have the same obsession with concerts but I have to be more reasonable now. I'm a wife and mother. There have been so many festival type shows that I've wanted to bankrupt us to attend, just drive and go party for 3 days in the mud and see all the music until I couldn't stand anymore. 

If I went through each shirt I could probably blog about the entire circumstance around the band featured. I could tell you who introduced me to that band, why they are epic, which songs I love, which songs I hate and then why I went to see them and pick that shirt.
Sometimes I have trouble remembering why I walked into a room but when it comes to that pile, I can remember it all. 

I found my Foo Fighters shirt. My cousin and his fiance couldn't go to that show. He gave us the tickets for free. We got a cool hotel room close by and since we didn't pay for tickets we spent the money we WOULD HAVE on tickets, on booze and shirts. I drank WAYYYY too much and annoyed my cousins friends. I feel badly about this to this today. That was their first and only one-on-one experience with me and I was tanked and dancing, swaying, half-singing. It was ridiculous! And the waste of a good concert. I mean I remember it being awesome but still!

So that's 46 shows, and not to mention COUNTLESS others that I came home with a bumper sticker with or a signed set list, a drum set, etc. Going to shows was my sport. It had replaced shopping and I just needed to soak in as much live music as possible!

I'm just sitting back thinking about all of this because when I posted on Instagram I asked if it was excessive or awesome to have so many shirts? My answer is that it's completely amazing because they hold within them the story of my earlier days. I dug out my overalls and an old t-shirt and choker. I found the time to straighten my hair. My husband was adoring me a bit with some teasing commentary saying "Oh it's nice to see you all dressed up and with an outfit and like," I cut him off. I said, "It's nice to see me looking like me? I look like me, right?" He agreed, yes definitely.

Funnily enough, I didn't go anywhere but I think there are versions of me layered parfait-style within the outward Alison exterior. I can't pick my daughter up at school with a shirt that says "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Got Balls.," even if they are holding bowling balls. I have an Offspring shirt and the back says "Stupid Goddamn Bullshit Motherfucker," or some such. Should I wear that to soccer practice?

You go in and out of phases. My husband and I actually had a ridiculous disagreement in the car last night. He was questioning the music I had on because of the lyrics. One of my favorite bands, Dashboard Confessional, of which I have a shirt, was singing from the car stereo, "My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me, so won't you kill me, so I die happy." He said, "Oh nice, songs about killing people."

I got defensive fast. I said, "This is Dashboard, it's poetry!" He said, "The subject matter is a little intense." I said "Being in love that you want that epic kiss to kill you so you can die happy isn't okay?" He shrugged and said "She's not even 7!" I said, "So when she asks me I'll tell her what it means! At least it's not filled with swear words! We were listening to Fleetwood Mac yesterday! All those songs are about cheating on people!" 

He gave up quickly after I said "How is this any different than Taylor Swift talking about being and Archer or telling people to calm down or doing something bad that feels good?" He was like "Okay okay fine!" My daughter chimed in the back about liking country. I retorted, "Those songs are all about getting drunk!" We finally tabled it but it was a worthy argument I feel.

I want my kiddo to see these shirts and ask about where I got them, ask about the bands and we listen to them and I get to tell her stories. She can like or dislike them. I was listening to the Pointer Sisters when I was 3 (most of those songs are heavily laden with sexual undertones), I was obsessed with The Monkees when I was 5, I loved Talking Heads, whose prominent song is "Psycho Killer," and I went on to fall in love with music and keep it close to me for therapeutic value and adventures.

Those 46 shirts are 46 memorable stories of ME, or infinite memories if you get me going and I love that I get to call them all mine. I feel like more blogs like this will be coming along. Happy musical Monday, readers!