Who Knew?

From my seat at the show

A thing has been happening in my life that I haven’t talked about On Here, and it has been the subtext of my 2024. To make an extremely long story short, my husband lost his job and his severance runs out at the end of the year. He is in academia, and anyone who knows about that particular market understands how difficult it is to find a job. While this definitely sucks, we are fortunate enough that we will be fine on one income for a while. I made the most money from writing this year than I have in my whole career because of my playwriting commission and Substack subscriptions. Let me take this moment to say THANK YOU to my paid subscribers for making this a little easier as I navigate the new normal.

I have been trying to take in as many cultural experiences as I can while we still have two incomes. One thing I really wanted to do is attend one of the Big Arena Pop Diva Concerts. I struggled over it, because ticket prices are nothing short of extortion, and I really don’t think it should be legal for Ticketmaster to scalp their own damn tickets, but it’s not changing any time soon.

After some deliberation, I decided I wanted to see Pink, as her Summer Carnival tour was coming to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. I have always thought she was a super cool person¹, she’s a great LGBTQ+ ally, she has released some of my favorite pop bangers, and the things she does on stage are, well, they’re fucking insane. I wanted to see it in action. I wanted to watch her fly.

I told my husband that was all I wanted for my birthday, and he procured us tickets. October seemed like a million years away when we planned this, but the day of the show finally arrived. I found myself agonizing over what to wear. What does a middle aged woman wear to a pop concert these days?

And then I had an idea. I would go dressed as an Elder Millennial. Which is what I am.

I put on a version of what was practically my uniform in high school. I’d toss on a concert tee, one of my dad’s flannels, and jeans². I dug out one of my favorite shirts that I got from Etsy a while back, and asked my husband if I could borrow one of his flannels.

Reality Bites is my love language

I don’t really dress like this anymore. I can’t remember the last time I wore a flannel. I looked at myself in the mirror and had this hit of recognition. It was my teenage self in the mirror. She looks a little different, but it was her. I haven’t seen her in a long, long time. It’s hard to explain what I felt, but it was like, “Oh, there you are. Hello”.

We rolled up to MetLife after grabbing dinner. Our seats were excellent, and I was very pleased, even though I was well aware of what it cost (ouch). We weren’t on the floor, mind you. Not even close. But we had aisle seats and an unobstructed view, and the people around us were well behaved, so that’s a win right there. We could see both the stage and the screens perfectly.

Sheryl Crow was the opener. She looks incredible, performed very well, and played most of her big hits. Admittedly, I left during “Every Day is a Winding Road” to get a beer and pee before the big show. Due to it being played approximately ten billion times a day when it came out, I felt like it was a good time to beat the lines.

Having procured a light beer for the low low price of 15 American Dollars, it was time for the main event. I was excited as hell. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I hadn’t looked at the setlist ahead of time. While I love Pink as a pop artist, I definitely don’t have a super strong relationship to her the way I do to Tori Amos or any of my other faves. I don’t go “omg I absolutely HAVE to listen to Trustfall right now or I won’t get through the day”. I have little to no parasocial relationship with her, other than I think she is a badass and also very cute.

Given that, it surprised me how much I absolutely freaked out when she came on stage. I got a huge blast of adrenaline and launched out of my seat when she opened with “Get the Party Started”, which came out when I was in college. I spent many a night pre-gaming and getting ready for a big night out with that song playing. I was dancing and singing from the first bars of that song and didn’t stop for basically the first chunk of the set.

Not only was I thrilled to hear a favorite jam, this woman is singing the hell out of this song while being whipped around in a harness. Now, she does have a background in gymnastics, and clearly works out like a demon. What gets me is that she is singing the entire time, not lip syncing, and you don’t even hear her breath catch. She gets flung up many feet in the air, flips upside down, gets launched back up, and never misses a note. I used to do musical theater, so I know that it is hard enough just to dance while you’re singing. The strength and technique and commitment it must have taken to learn to sing like that is unreal.

Photo credit - Michael Karas, Asbury Park Press

Did I mention that she is 45? I’m two years younger and I was worn out just from watching this.

These songs turned me back into a feral 20 something. At one point I realized I was fist pumping a little. Beating the beat up, like Vinny and Pauly D. You can’t play “Raise Your Glass” and expect me not to put my hands in the air³.

If you don’t understand this reference I can’t help you

---

Early on in the set, she played another favorite of mine - “Who Knew”. It is one of those songs that snuck up on me over the years, especially as I started to experience more death in my life. It always makes me cry, and this performance was no exception. But soon enough, she was back to the bangers, and I was dancing again.

There was an acoustic set in the middle, and she managed to make it feel intimate, even in a stadium. This was also a break for the olds, because that meant we got to sit down, and I appreciated it. She sang a duet with her 13 year old daughter, Willow, that was very sweet.

In honor of the songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who recently passed away, Pink covered “Me and Bobby McGee” (made famous by Janis Joplin). It’s one of my favorite songs by anyone ever, and I have so many happy memories of singing it with my friends in high school at the diner. There were no dancers or set pieces or acrobatics, just a woman with an amazing voice singing with a guitarist. She slayed it. It was a highlight of the show. Once again, I cried.

My other favorite moment in this part of the set was when she launched into a cover of “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes. This song is a proper anthem for us Elder Millennial/Gen Xers, and it cut deep, especially in these times when our rights have been stripped from us. I didn’t know I needed to hear thousands of women and queers singing this at the top of their lungs, but I did, and I was so moved by it. And - you guessed it - I was crying. AGAIN. I had no idea I would bawl so much at the Pink show, but it’s 2024, so you just never know when an ugly cry is coming your way.

My impulse whenever I start crying these days is to try and stop the tears. During the pandemic, and before my diagnosis, my emotions had become waves with no breakers. If I started crying, I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t the release that a good cry normally gives you, it just built and built and built on itself. It was all pain, pain on top of pain, a tsunami of pain. It would only stop when I finally wore myself out. The easiest thing to do was…not. Instead, I tried to drown it in the bottom of a bottle, or smoke it out with weed, or smother it with food. That didn’t work out for me. I have to feel my feelings now, as they are happening. I need to trust that they won’t take me out to sea.

Crying at this show felt SO GOOD, maybe because I didn’t expect to cry. It felt like that kind of good crying I have missed so desperately, the crying that feels like a strange sort of orgasm, that leaves you wrung out but relieved.

I also have been missing the other side of the emotional spectrum, which is joy. Joy has been the hardest emotion for me to get back. I felt it at this show. Tons of it. Unbridled, goofy, silly joy. I was having actual fun.

I don’t want to be afraid of my own emotions anymore. I want the sadness, I want the joy, I want it all. It’s not that I want to be 15 again, or 21, or even 25. God, no. No thank you. I much prefer the wisdom and the better set of emotional brakes. Still, I’d like a way for all us girls to get together more often, all of those girls who were me, who still are me. It was nice to hang out with them and let our freak flag fly. We don’t have to mask. We don’t have to pretend we are chill. We are well aware that we have not, do not, and will not ever possess a single ounce of chill.

---

Before I knew it, the show was ending. Two hours went by in what felt like two minutes. She came out for one last song, her massive 2008 hit “So What”. If you think you don’t know this song, I promise you do.

Is this song a little corny? Yes. Is it catchy as hell? Yes. Do I love it? Also yes. I love that one of her biggest hits is a diss track about a man she is definitely still married to. Respect.

Pink walked back on stage in a sparkly one piece outfit and took a deep breath as they connected cables to her harness. She shouted “I’m coming to see you all up top!”, that familiar guitar riff kicked in, and she was launched into the air.

Dear readers, I am not ashamed to say that I LOST MY SHIT.

MetLife is huge, and the aerial rig is designed so that she flies past every section, even the cheap seats. Not only is she flying very high, she is going SO fast. It looks much faster in person than it does on video. I can’t imagine how terrifying it was, even if she has done it a million times. At one point, she flipped upside so she was facing the ground. They dropped her face first - almost into the crowd - only to yank her back up into the air again. I screamed.

Sixty thousand of us watched as this strong, brave BADASS flew around the entirety of the stadium - part bird of prey, part Tinkerbell - as she delivered great vocals on top of it. She doesn’t have to do this. She could use a backing track and I think anyone would forgive her.

It was exhilarating. I was still high from it the next morning, and frankly, I still kind of am. It is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen a human being do on a stage. It isn’t a gimmick. It’s a feat of skill. The athleticism, discipline, talent and courage required to execute this is almost superhuman.

I can’t really put in words how incredible this was to watch. This video gives you an idea, but it doesn’t come close to being there.

This was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. Not just one of the best pop concerts, any concert. Even my husband, who doesn’t like pop nearly as much as I do, agreed that it was an incredible show and really enjoyed himself. I am sure watching my Magical Mystery Tour of Every Single Emotion was its own form of entertainment.

The show stayed with me all week. Every time I have seen a great show since things started to open back up, I have felt a little part of myself return. It’s like someone is flipping the lights back on, one switch at a time. Pink went ahead and flipped more than one switch for me. I didn’t expect that at all.

I knew I couldn’t get on a plane and go see her again (I did look into it!), so I did the next best thing. I went on a good ol’ fashioned hyper-focused deep dive. I read and watched interviews she did, other live performances, and re-watched her documentary All I Know So Far. It was cool to re-watch it with new eyes, and seeing the intensity and meticulous planning that goes into what she does.

As someone who has fought and scrapped to have a creative career, I am grateful for the women artists who were brave enough to subvert expectations, tell the patriarchy to fuck off, and embrace the things that made them different. She was definitely in that category. I don’t think I fully realized that she was such an inspiration to me. It was humming in the background of my entire adult life.

Pink came on the scene at a time when I felt out of place and like I didn’t belong anywhere. In the early aughts when the beauty standards were pin straight blonde hair and size zero jeans, I had thick thighs and wild hair. My undiagnosed neurodivergence meant I wasn’t quite in step with my peers. Pink also didn’t fit the standard of conventional beauty at the time, nor did she act the way women were "supposed” to act. She rebelled against an industry and a culture that told her that she wouldn’t be able to reach the heights of her contemporaries. Not only did she prove them wrong by building a career that has spanned more than 20 years, not to mention multiple top 10 songs, she quite literally learned how to fly.

When Pink comes back to town, I will absolutely go see her again. I might be in the nosebleeds, but I know I won’t miss a thing from up there. I’ll bring all of the girls so we can hang out again. We’ll have a time.

All hail Rayanne Graff, the patron saint of the X-ennial. I hope she’s not still waiting for Tino.

1. A friend of mine was Pink’s waiter once here in the city, and said she was incredibly nice and down to earth. You know a celeb is a real one when they treat their waitstaff kindly. I have a list of celebs I will think are assholes forever now because I waited on them. I don’t care if they can sing. If you’re a dick to service people, you are dead to me.

2. Sorry kids, they were skinny jeans. Your jeans are not the stovepipe JNCO ones of my youth, they look like jeans my grandma wore in 1993. Sadly, in those, I just look like a grandma. And no, I will never wear a low rise jean and trust me, you don’t want me to. You can take my stretchy skinny jeans from my cold, dead hands.

3. To all the Gen Z-ers dunking on Millennials for putting their hands up in the air when they are dancing - please understand that we were instructed to in nearly every popular song. How am I supposed to shake it like a Polaroid picture without using my arms? How else can I indicate that I just don’t care if I don’t wave my hands in the air? Also, what are you all doing with your hands when you dance? Are you dancing with your arms at your sides like the Peanuts kids? I think about this kind of thing too much.