Living in a smallish town with a big university affords certain cultural benefits that we wouldn’t find in another town of our same size.  Matt and I have been systematically attending concerts of our favorite bands and sometimes we go back again and again like with Over the Rhine and Poor Old Lu (back in the day, of course) and Pete Yorn and Counting Crows.  We have a mental list of bands/artists yet to see in concert, and we try to check their websites to keep an eye on when they’ll be in Chicago, and especially when they’ll come to the U of I’s Assembly Hall or one of 3 other venues here in town.  Bands we still hope to see include U2, Radiohead, Sarah MacLachlan, Jimmy Eat World, and tons of others.  I have been keeping an eye on Jimmy Eat World ever since I became a fan approximately 8-9 years ago, right before they hit it big, back when my good friend Ben introduced me to new music on a regular basis.  I was a fan before it was cool to be their fan– yeah!  He also gets credit for my love for Toad the Wet Sprocket, but alas, they broke up before I made it to a concert.  Anyway, Jimmy has been running around in Europe and the east and west coasts for years and I was becoming convinced that they would quit making music before I’d get a chance to see them!  Then I found out they were coming to the Assembly Hall this Friday night and I nearly cried because I knew I’d have 2.5 month old twins and no chance to go.  How could do they do this to me… come to my own town at the one time I can’t go see them?  To add insult to injury, they are touring with Viva Voce, who we love and last saw here in town on election night in 2004 and Matt wore his “Viva Voce for President” tshirt to the concert, earning us a photo op with the band!  It was shameless brown-nosing and totally worth it!  Kevin and Anita are super cool people, and we had a great time meeting them!
Since Jimmy is one of my favorites and Viva is one of Matt’s favorites, we committed ourselves to making this happen for his birthday.  We already gave up a sweet Over the Rhine concert opportunity later this month because we can’t get babysitting for 9 hours while we scurry off to Chicago!  So we MUST make this happen.  I think we have 2 sitters in place (please, I’m the babies’ mommy and I can barely handle both of them so we certainly can’t leave them with only one sitter at this age!) so this could happen!  Happy birthday to Matt and happy day to me!