Desperado, Sing Us a Song and Don’t Make Me Wait…(IYKYK)

Aaron and I will celebrate 35 years of marriage on November 24th. We agreed that we needed to celebrate this milestone with something other than take-out or a movie. According to the Knot, “After thirty-five years of marriage, your partner deserves some coral to show that you’ve loved the protection and longevity of your marriage. A piece of coral jewelry such as a necklace or bracelet can be a cherished traditional gift.”  Nope. Not interested in anything coral. Let me preface this assertion with one exception, I am interested in vacationing somewhere warm where I could snorkel on a coral reef, but that was not in the cards. Realizing that we no longer cared about what the traditional 35^th anniversary gift was, I stumbled across the perfect 35^th anniversary gift. A portal to our youth, also known as an Eagles concert. After mulling the options to Take It Easy or Take It to the Limit One More Time, we opted for the latter choice and are in Las Vegas this weekend for that concert.  The concert is part of The Eagles’ aptly named The Long Goodbye Tour.

We LOVE the Eagles. We were able to see them when they played in Billings in 2015 and it was the best concert we have ever attended. Every song they sang, we sang along too and reminisced about listening to their music all the time when we were in high school and college. It was an amazing night. Aaron and I love to travel and listen to music so the opportunity to see The Eagles in Las Vegas, one more time, was not something we wanted to miss. I booked the tickets and by the time you read this blog, we will have attended the concert (11/8).

We have had the opportunity to see Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Night Ranger, Bob Seger, KISS, and Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer all over the past ten years. The artists all still sounded great but it was jarring to realize that these rock stars of our youth were in their mid-to-late seventies. We stared in awe as they were onstage still doing their thing. We saw Bob Seger in Portland in 2018 and he put on an amazing show. Despite Seger’s pipes still sounding fantastic, I could not help staring at him with his blanket of white gray hair and thinking “who the hell is that?” Some of these bands have now lost members, including Glen Frey, Christine McVie, and Jimmy Buffet. I am beyond thankful that we took the opportunity to see these musicians of our youth while we still had a chance to do so.

Either through the universe aligning, luck, or coincidence, Billy Joel and Sting are headlining a one-night concert in Las Vegas tonight, and we will be at that concert as well. Based on experience, Gen X will all be out in force for this weekend of concerts and like the artists, we will all look a couple of years older but refuse to miss an opportunity to travel back in time. We will all sing, sway along as the memories of the of our youth flood back, and “With Every Breath You Take” we will love the music and artists, “Just the Way You Are.”  Cheers to thirty-five years!