Last night I went to the symphony to hear one of my favorite bands, Mofro, perform with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. It was an awesome musical experience. I love to hear musicians collaborate and this was a collaboration on a grand level. And the music hall made the experience so much more enjoyable. I have been to many Mofro concerts, and I tend to enjoy the outdoors ones more than the smaller venues just for the acoustics. But last night was awesome. Well, the music was awesome. The audience kinda sucked. I understand that Mofro is a great blues/rock/soul band, but when they play with the Symphony, you should dress up a little. Just a little. No baseball hats. No flip flops. Jeans might be acceptable if paired with a nice shirt and jacket. The women, for the most part, had the dressing thing down. And honestly, about 80 percent of the attendees were dressed ok. But the 20 percent that weren't, really stuck out. And for the most part, the Badly Dressed were young kids. Mostly teenage boys with shaggy haircuts. I don't know what is up with this phenomenon and it may be purely regional (we have a large surfing community) but what the fuck is up with the shaggy haircut? I hate it! Hate it! Here is an example: 
The kid in the black shirt has the shaggy haircut. It is all in his eyes. And it is ugly. Why would you purposely do this to your hair? It appears that these boys are actually having their hair styled this way, because honestly, hair that is just growing out doesn't look like that. I don't understand it. Where is this style coming from? I don't mind a guy with long hair, for the most part, but this....oi vey. Ok. Maybe it is just personal preference, I like a more clean cut look. Anyway, this shaggy hair kid is dressed very similarly to all the kids that were at the show last night. Except, you know, they all had on trucker hats. Yes sir. Shaggy haired boys in trucker hats. Now, if you are indeed a farmer, a trucker, or a construction worker, you may have trucker hats for a reason, to protect your face from the sun as you work your ass off. These private-schooled pale white children are not working in the sun. They are mostly using their allowance to buy pot. Which leads me to rant #2. There were kids smoking pot in the symphony hall. Dude, I don't give a shit where you smoke it, but don't smoke it there. Everything is upholstered for acoustics and you just stank the shit up. I suspected that the kids behind us were lighting up, but couldn't actually see the pot-smoking in action. But of course during intermission, they were bragging about it, so that pretty much cleared everything up for me. Luckily they moved because I was about to become...very unfriendly. Anyway onto Rant #3: The pot smoking kids behind us also had their shoes off and their feet on the row in front of them. CLASSY.
My husband, who wears trucker hats and camouflage as part of his day job, was very excited to dress up for the symphony. I don't understand why these kids couldn't put forth a little effort. By the way, the band members were all wearing suits, so I feel somewhat justified in my indignation. It was the symphony for chrissakes!
We plan on going back for other shows, hopefully shows attended by grownups.
