The Strokes and Wolfmother

This past Tuesday, me and two of my friends, Pete and Chase, and my sister, Steph, went to a concert in Boston at the Bank of America Pavilion to see Wolfmother and the Strokes. We had bought the tickets about a month and a half ago knowing full well that we would be leaving out of UMass. However, we did not know how hard it was actually going to be to get from Amherst out to Boston. Due to our lack of communication, everyone had thought that the other person was figuring out how we were getting up there. The day before the concert we find out that no one has any idea how we are getting out there. Because Chase and Pete were arguing with each other because one though the other was supposed to plan the whole thing, I figured that it would probably be best if I went about planning it, which is never a good idea by the way because whenever I plan things, things never go according to plan but we do always end up getting there. So the night before a looked all over the internet for any way to get to Boston. I found out that the closest train we could take left out of Springfield, but there were no buses out of Amherst too Springfield. The only Peter Pan bus leaving for Boston that would get us there in time left out of Springfield too. It seemed like we were out of luck. Thankfully I remembered that there was a taxi company around here. So we called for a taxi to pick us up here at 2:45 to catch the 4:00 train out to Boston. Now that we found a way to get to Boston, we had to figure out how we were going to get back. There were no trains or buses out of Boston at any time after the concert so our best bet was to stay in Boston overnight and catch the next bus the next morning to Amherst. It turns out Pete's dad lives just a subway ride out of Boston and he agreed to let us stay there overnight and then we could catch the 7:30 out of Boston the next morning. Now that we thought we had everything figured out we could sleep easy and just wait to have to go through it all the next day. So when 2:15 rolled around the next day and we were all out of our classes, we headed down to the visitor's center, which was where the taxi was going to pick us up. After sitting there for a half an hour, 2:50 rolls around and still no taxi. At this point, we can't afford to be any later and thankfully the taxi comes along just in time and bring us to the train station, for quite the fee I might add. So we get to the train station thinking that we are in good shape when we find out our train is 3 hours late. Now I don't know how a train can possibly be three hours late, but we were to busy trying to think how we were going to get to Boston now to ask. The lady at the desk told us that if we get there in time, there is a Peter Pan bus leaving out of the bus station in 5 minutes. After learning this, we sprinted out of the bus station, down the street a couple of blocks, bought our tickets, and got on the bus with only about a minute to spare. Now that we were on the bus, we could rest easy knowing that we would at least be in Boston with about a half an hour to get to the show. When we got to South Station in Boston, we found out that we had another problem. We didn't know exactly how to get to the Pavilion. The only thing we knew was that it was on the water. Without having a very good idea which direction this was, I started off walking down the street figuring I should at least make it look like I know where I'm going so I wouldn't have to listen to Pete complain the entire time. Luckily, my guess was right and we could eventually hear the music and see the crowds of people heading to the show. We missed the opening band because we were outside buying some shirts and getting something to eat, but we didn't miss any of the bands that we wanted to see. Sparing many of the details, the concert was absolutely amazing plus our seats were great after we snuck up right near the stage after saying that we were helping the security guy we were following who had no idea we were using him to move up. After the concert we hoped onto the subway and headed to Pete's dad's house, which was also fun after finding out we had to take 4 different lines to get there. We got off the subway and grabbed something to eat at this small diner that was open until 2 in the morning. We began to talk to the guy behind the counter and told him about how we just got back from the concert and told him how we were big music fans and all played in instrument. He was telling us how as long as we kept practicing, we could make it big in music because his reasoning was that if people like Justin Timberlake can make it big, anyone can. We then headed over to Pete's dad's house and spent the night there. After only getting about 5 hours of sleep, we made our way to the subway and eventually South Station where we caught our bus back home. Despite the fact that the show ended up costing us about $50 more than we thought, not including the money we spent on shirts and food. It was well worth it and a trip I will have to make at least two more times over the next couple of months for other concerts.