Throwback Thursday - The Anniversary Edition

Today, Jen and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. As we had an excellent dinner and drinks, I noticed the Riviera Theater across the street was advertising bands that were big when we started dating. One of them really jumped out at me: 

Part of the evening was talking about vacation plans for next year. We are going back to Saratoga Springs, NY to see Dave Matthews Band. Due to COVID, a yearly tradition went in the garbage and now we are playing catchup. Jen would like to see DMB twice next year, back-to-back dates in Saratoga. 

We've seen them a lot and I accidentally derailed the conversation.

Jennifer said, "Man, we have seen DMB so many times. I bet you haven't seen the same band twice in two days." 

"Queensryche, 3 times in 3 days. I've seen them so many times," I said. 

She was flummoxed. "We've seen Dave Matthews 18 times. How many times have you seen Queensryche?" 

I started counting. As I got into it, it was easier to count cities by country than concerts. 

Buffalo, NY. 84, 89, 91 
Darien Center, NY. 95, 97
Weedsport, NY. 95 
Rochester, NY. 84, 89, 91
Blossom, Toledo, and Columbus, OH. in 1997, one time each. 

In addition to these dates, I saw them in Syracuse twice but don't remember what year. 

I could swear I saw them more in Canada than in the US, but I was wrong: 

Toronto, ON. 86, 89, 91, 95
Hamilton, ON. '88, 89
Ottawa, ON. 89*

* There was a second disastrous show in Ottawa where I ate the pizza at Mcdonald's. I puked my brains out at the show. So embarrassing because I didn't even have a chance to figure out the drinking age. It was a straight-up bad food choice. (It would have been 18 but for some reason, I forgot Ottawa was in Ontario.) 

You'll notice a funny thing about that list. I met my wife at the end of 1996 and we started dating in 1997. She missed the Queensryche years. When we met, she had only been to one concert. I decided to change that and one of our first concerts was DMB. 

So, if we go to DMB in July of next year, I will have seen Dave Matthews a little less than I have seen Queensryche. Thanks to my wife, by virtue of our metalhead daughter, I will get to add one more Queensryche tally to the list and keep that band on top for another couple of years. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.