Suburban mom attends first TECH N9NE concert

Thursday night my husband, Dan, came home, picked up the phone and called our babysitter to see if she was free the following night. He wanted to take me on a date. I was unbelievably excited about this because we have not spent much time together for the last couple weeks due to crazy schedules. Not to mention how cute it was on his part to initiate the whole deal.

Friday morning he called me when he got to work and told me he just remembered his client, TECH N9NE was playing in Kansas City on our date night. As I've written about before, my husband and two other guys own a production company. One of the things they do is make music videos and some of their clients are rappers. That is so very different than what I do on a daily basis.

When they play in town, Dan likes to go to the concerts to show his support. I stay at home with the kiddos on those nights and watch movies about Princesses. It is totally understandable that he wants to support them and he asked me if that would be okay to do on our date. Attending a rap concert is not exactly my idea of a romantic evening but we were going to go to dinner beforehand and he said we wouldn't have to stay all that long. Okay, fine he talked me into it.

Never mind that I rarely listen music with lyrics about anything other than letters of the alphabet or animal noises. I'm a mom with two kids 5 and under, what do you expect? Dan makes the kids listen to good music - he doesn't stand for the kid music and so they actually have pretty good taste - Spoon is a big favorite of theirs. But when they are with me I let them listen to whatever they want.

Anyway, Friday night came and we headed out for our date. BTW- what does mid thirties suburban mom of 2 wear to a rap concert??? I've got to be honest, I did go through a rap phase when I was 16 along with all of my friends - but I have not revisited it since then.

Dinner was lots of fun, afterward we went to a bar to grab a few drinks and then headed over to the concert. I so did not want our evening of quiet to come to an end but alas we had to go. My "not so sure about this whole deal" mood soured a bit more when we walked up to a long line outside the venue that wound around the block. Top that with the fact that it was 11 degrees and snowing - this was not starting off well.

After standing there for about 5 minutes, a guy with TECH N9NE and crew who knows Dan walked up, took us out of the line and brought us in a side door. Not bad.

Inside we got a drink and started pushing our way up toward the front. The place was packed! We came to a standstill in the dead middle right by a gated area that housed the lighting and sound for the concert. The guy running the sound said "hey Dan, come on in here." Score! We got to watch the entire concert in an area that, had it not been gated, would have housed about 25 people smashed into one another - but instead it was us and the sound/light guys. There were even stools to sit on. Things were getting better and better.

About thirty seconds into the concert I was hooked. The crowd was so excited and there was so much energy. Sadly I think the last concert I went to was Jim Cosgrove, Mr. Stinky Feet. It just did not have quite the same feel...

I do happen to know a lot of TECH N9NE's songs because I've seen the videos that my husband directs. About 2 minutes later I was on the stool rocking with the crowd (see I'm a total mom - what a dorky thing to say). It was so much fun! There is one song at the end where girls lift their tops - I was so into this whole deal, I think Dan was getting nervous. He said I was not allowed to do that because A) I have children and B) There were cameras filming everything. He's no fun!

After the concert was over we went backstage. It took all my willpower to not embarrass my husband thoroughly by asking for a photo with Tech and Krizz Kaliko. I had only met them before for about five seconds at the Strange Music Christmas party this past December but they all gave me hugs like they had known me forever. They could not have been nicer and actually spent a lot of time telling me that my husband is awesome and extremely creative. Coming from guys who just played to a sold out crowd who were dancing and singing every word to their songs, that is a pretty big compliment.

The evening was the best date ever. Suburban mom is now a rap fan.