how you like that?

after getting assed out on tickets for their last show in l.a., we were pretty excited to score floor seats for blackpink's tour stop at dodger stadium.  i'll admit that this is not on my list of favorite venues, especially for a concert, but it was our only option and i knew the bean wanted to see them live at least once.  lilcee and i had coordinated our efforts when the tickets went on sale, and we both managed to snag tickets but then decided to use hers because they were better seats than the ones i got.  

of course, black and pink were the colors of the evening:

and it was a lovely summer evening that started to cool off as we arrived at the stadium.

after a little confusion as to how and where to get checked in - there was little to no signage that was made clearly visible - we made our way down to the floor only to find that we needed special wristbands to gain access, and so had to backtrack and fight our way through the crowds to find the check-in desk.  

but once we got our shit together, we headed back down to the floor and found our seats.  we were off to one side, but we were fairly close to the front.

it was fun to be there for something other than a baseball game.

although it was a little odd to be eating a dodger dog without having dodgers down on the field.

they didn't have an opening act, so the girls hit the stage right at 9:00.  and of course...i got stuck standing behind these incredibly tall guys and had pretty much zero view of anything without the help of the screens.  bah.

mind you, i don't blame them at all - it wasn't their fault that they were tall and wanted to stand up and dance through the whole show.  i mean, don't we all?  it's just my dumb luck that my short ass always ends up behind them.  oh well.  and so i ended up watching the whole concert like this:

every now and then i'd be able to catch a glimpse of the stage.

i had a good view of the confetti that was blasted up into the air.  heh.

and sometimes i'd get a glimpse of them as they walked down the catwalk to the second stage.

we'd heard that john legend and chrissy teigen were in the audience, and towards the end of the show when lilcee and winnie took the girls to the restroom and stopped at the concession stand they just missed them being escorted down the aisle and towards the VIP exit.  oh well.

blackpink puts on a great show, full of energy and enthusiasm.  it was a fun evening.

when the show ended and the lights came up, it was the usual bottleneck of giant crowds of people trying to head up the narrow aisles towards the exits.  i heard someone coughing behind us and i leaned towards the bean and said "oh boy...that would suck if this ended up being a superspreader event."  

and as it usually is, getting out of the parking lot was a pain in the ass.  we were stuck sitting in the lot for the better part of an hour before we finally got outta there, but we just killed the time talking and laughing and peoplewatching.

also - it turned out that i definitely jinxed us with my joking comment, because a few days later the bean and i found ourselves down for the count with the telltale symptoms that led to a rapid home test for covid that lit up like a christmas tree almost as soon as we squeezed the drops into them.  yikes.  and the timing couldn't have been much worse because it was the bean's first full week of school.

good times.