The Fray Disaster

My friend Kevin had tickets to the Fray concert and wanted to treat me for my birthday. As much as I was looking forward to the show (even though I only know their one song "How to Save a Life" but hey, a free show's a free show), what a disaster it turned out to be! I left work early to catch the train to meet him at Grand Central so we can go to Queens together to his friend's house where he parks his car. I should have known it was going to be a bad night when all the trains going uptown to the Bronx were shut down for 45 minutes due to blackouts caused by thunderstorms. Due to other delays, it took us another hour to get to Queens. After picking up two of Kevin's friends, we drove for about an hour to the Nikon Jones Beach Theater on Long Island. The venue was beautiful with outdoor seating right by the water and packed with screaming 15-year-olds all decked out in Abercrombie or Hollister (and the occasional high school lacrosse sweatshirts). That also explains why it was a dry venue - NO ALCOHOL!!!

It started sprinkling when the opening act (Go) was performing but then it started pouring cats and dogs midway through their act. We were not allowed to use umbrellas while the band was performing so after sitting there in the rain for 15 minutes, we decided to walk back to the entrance area which is covered. Then it started thundering with strong winds blowing but they refused to cancel the show. After 45 minutes of standing and waiting for the rain to subside with no end in sight, we decided to call it quits and walked back to our car in the heavy rain. As we ran to the car, our feet were completely soaked in 5-inch water, swimming in puddles of water in my ballet flats. But what happens after we got to our car? The rain stopped. So after another 15 minutes, we decided to go back to the stadium. Guess what happens as soon as we made it back to our seats? It started pouring again! We just couldn't win! This time we accidentally left our umbrellas in the car so we had to use trash bags they were passing out as ponchos. Again we waited for the rain to clear up but after 20 minutes of rain and thunder and wind and girls screaming, we decided one last time to join the mass exodus out of the stadium. Again. We finally made it to our car completely drenched and after about 30 minutes of driving, we realized we were driving the wrong way. Honestly it couldn't have ended any other way don't you think?

The next day Kevin found out they canceled the show after all and was rescheduled for 7/3. Unfortunately I would not be in NYC by then so I mailed Kevin back his ticket so he can take another friend to the show. So much for my free concert...