Two Great Concerts- P!nk and Ed Sheeran!

 I haven't been to a concert in YEARS and, even then, I've only ever been to like 2 concerts in my life- both in college.  I went to Hermin's Hermits (if that counts, lol) with my roomate and to My Chemical Romance with a group of friends but really that's about it for me and concerts.  This Fall I had the opportunity to go to TWO concerts and they were both awesome.  Part of me wonders if all other concerts are just going to be let-downs now because these two were so good!

Last November when Jenna and I were travelling out to Utah for Time Out For Women we were chatting and she mentioned she would love to go to a P!nk Concert someday.  It was within the next month after that that I happened to come across an ad for P!nk's Summer Carnival and saw that it was coming to Minneapolis in the Summer- perfect!  I texted Jenna and she was all in!  She got us tickets and we started making plans.  

It was a long wait until the concert in August, and with everything going on this summer in made for a lot of travel back-to-back but I'm so glad I made it work because it was so fun!  To top the craziness off a little bit, the P!nk Concert was on Thursday- August 9th in Minneapolis and on Saturday the 10th in Minneapolis Jenna was going to another concert- Ed Sheeran with my nieces Anne, & Ella, Ella's boyfriend, and my nephew Tanner and his wife Madi.  The week before the concert Jenna texted me that she'd seen on facebook that Tanner and Madi weren't going to be able to make it anymore and were trying to sell their tickets.  Jenna strongly suggested Jon and I needed to be the ones to buy them!  Haha. Long story short we bought the tickets even though it made for a crazy busy weekend and lots of out-of-my-comfort-zone driving and again, I'm super glad we did!  So plans were made- I would drive up to Minneapolis by myself Thursday- meet up with Jenna and her sister Ashley at a hotel I'd booked, we'd go to dinner and then to the P!nk concert.  After we'd stay overnight and then Friday morning I'd drive back to Iowa, gather up my family, then we'd all turn around and drive back to Rochester with our kids.  We'd stay over Friday night at Mark & Jenna's then Saturday afternoon leave our kids with Mark, drive up to Minneapolis with Jenna, Anne, Ella, Hayden, and go to dinner and then Ed Sheeran.  After the concert it was back to Mark and Jenna's and the next morning wake up and drive back to Iowa so Jon could pack up and fly to AZ the next morning (Monday).    Craziness!  The driving was a bit intimidating for me but I made it work!  

P!nk was awesome!  It was so fun hanging out with Jenna and Ashley and singing to all the songs.  Pat Benatar was an opening act for her and she was a lot of fun too!  We sang our hearts out and had a blast!  We rode public transit to the concert and back and that was a fun people-watching experience as well.  P!nk is such a great performer and all of her songs were so fun.  She had all sorts of acrobatics mixed in with her songs and at the end even flew around the stadium on cables.  It was pretty cool!

Ed Sheeran's concert was a completely different vibe.  He didn't have acrobatics or backup dancers but he did create all of his music live on stage in a loop, which was pretty cool.  Khalid was an opening act and sang "Young, Dumb, & Broke" and then later in the concert they sang their collaboration "Beautiful People" which was pretty cool.  I learned that Ed Sheeran wrote one of my favorite songs, "Dancing with my Eyes Closed" about his friend dying.... so that was sad but also touching.  It was also great that Jon got to be with me for that concert- it was the first concert we've ever been to together!  It was fun to share that experience even despite the fact that Jon's back was on like week 3 of being painfully out of place.  He was a good sport and toughed it out though because he knew I really wanted to go together.  What a great guy :)

Finally, it was cool to get up to Minneapolis and see some of the big stadiums up there.  The P!nk concert was in the Twins stadium and the Ed Sheeran concert was in the Vikings Stadium.  It was cool to see those and even gave us the itch to go see some games sometime!