Pirates and Parrots

Here are a few photos from last week’s concert. St. Louis was fun, but it wasn’t quite as exciting as the other Buffett concerts we’ve been to. We’ve always gone to the shows in Cincinnati, which is Parrot Head central. It’s where the madness began many years ago, and those folks have a reputation to uphold. The tailgating begins early that morning on the empty lots across from Riverbend Amphitheater, and by the time noon rolls around you can barely find a parking place. See?

These folks come prepared. A tiki bar at your tailgating corner is a minimum and many come with things like portable generators. If you look closely in the middle of this picture you’ll see these guys brought a commercial smoothie machine.

Other folks bring the beach with them.

Large fins on top of vehicles are pretty typical as is a wild assortment of tropical themed outfits. We’ve seen bands, horseshoe games, limbo contests, kiddie pools and a slippin’ slide contest, which I watched with one eye closed because I’m old enough to recognize the danger of breaking or busting something when you mix a slippin’ slide and drunken people. You can never touch a sip of alcohol and have a great time just watching people at these things. So you can see why we were a little disappointed to find that the St. Louis crowd was…well…terribly mild. It was fun nonetheless, and here’s a little taste. The parking lot was full by 5pm.

The amphitheater started to fill up by 6pm. These are known as “the lawn people”.

Jimmy gives a shout out to them often during his shows. We were lawn people last year. It can get kind of crazy on the lawn since that’s where all the really young party folks who can’t afford $130 a ticket end up. We like being in the pavilion where it’s a little calmer. I meant to take a picture of the lawn when it was really full but forgot. Sorry. I was distracted by the man with the world’s longest tongue in front of me. I forgot to take his picture, too. Use your imagination. No, wait, don’t do that.

I met a nice pirate on the lawn.

He didn’t have a peg leg, but he walked with a limp. Me thinks he likes having his picture taken with younger women. In Cincinnati, our costumes would be average. In St. Louis, they were a little over the top. My parrot flip-flops were a hit at this venue, too. People kept stopping me and asking to take my picture. Hmmm. I wonder if they blog.

Hats are an important part of your Buffett costume. A lot of folks plop a parrot or plastic drink glasses on their hat.
Others go for the fin look.

Hubby leaves all the dressing up to me. See his one lei? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

He’s shy. Good thing he’s not embarrassed by my attire. Our cab driver was though. He let us off at the front gate and refused to drive into the amphitheater. Poor fellow. He wasn’t used to this kind of craziness. Our view from our seats wasn’t too bad. This picture doesn’t really do it justice. You’ll need to squint.

But it certainly wasn’t as good as two years ago when we were on the seventh row.

The woman two rows in front of me caught his flip flops at the end of the show. I immediately hated her.

Like I said, we had a great time, but next year I think we’ll go back to Cincinnati. It’s just more fun there…and they don’t charge $9 for a cheeseburger.