Southern hospitality up north with random acts of kindness

The crowd around me is on its feet, screaming so loud you can barely hear the music blaring… The crowd around me is on its feet, screaming so loud you can barely hear the music blaring over the loudspeakers. With confetti flying through the air, the environment is chaotic, but there is no place I’d rather be.

I’m talking about a concert at the Post-Gazette Pavilion — actually, any good concert. I discovered last summer that I’m a concert junkie. You name it, I’ll go see it. Give me a band I love and great seats and I’m there.

Thanks to my internship last summer, I made a trip out to Burgettstown at least twice a month. A country music fan, I saw nearly every country act that came through Pittsburgh last summer — from Kenny Chesney to Tim McGraw to Toby Keith.

There’s nothing like the high you get from being at a good concert. Yeah, you have the drunks and the hoochies, but you also have the nicest group of people you’ll ever meet. Think about it: You are all there for the same reason, so why wouldn’t you be nice to other people?

It was the end of May when I returned to the concert scene for the summer, and within the first 10 minutes, I remembered why I always loved it. It was the Rascal Flatts concert, which happens to be my favorite band. I had seen them the year before with a good friend, but there was such rigamarole about the whole thing that I let my paranoid tendencies take over for me. Last summer, the box office messed up my ticket request, and I went from having 12th row, center stage seats to having 5th row, obstructed-view seats.

I was not letting that happen this year. I made my reservations beforehand, printed my confirmation and was ready to be there early. A good friend of mine ended up going with me, one who had never heard of the band before. We got there obscenely early — almost three hours before the gates opened.

Of course, it was pouring buckets. Maria and I were huddled underneath the box office roof, waiting for them to open so we could get our tickets, when a woman in her 40s walked up to us and started talking. For the next hour, the three of us talked, swapping stories about the band, other concert experiences and even family. It was as if we had run into a friend, not a complete stranger.

I had passes to go backstage and meet the band, so a few hours later, I was waiting in line with a bunch of other people, predominantly women. I saw my new friend from earlier and moved farther back in the line to chat for a while. It was during this meet-and-greet that I started to really understand the kindness of country music fans.

The line was moving quickly, and I was snapping pictures left and right. Suddenly, like all electronic equipment I touch, my camera began to malfunction. The battery died.

The irony of the situation was that I had, at my mother’s insistence, brought a spare battery. The sad thing was it was back in my fourth-row seats with Maria. So it looked like after missing last year’s opportunity, I would miss yet another picture opportunity with the band.

Surprisingly, everyone started offering to help me. The girl in front of me, who I had been chatting with, offered to take a picture, scan it and send it to me, just as the woman I had met earlier did. Then, the guy behind me to whom I hadn’t uttered a word, said he had a digital camera, and why didn’t he just take the picture and e-mail it to me.

Nathan’s act of kindness made my day. Sure enough, I received the picture the next day; well, that is, after he accidentally sent me a picture of a tractor.

This wasn’t the first time I had seen this type of kindness at a country concert. While they may be hard-working, beer-drinking people, as one country artist said, they are nice people who put aside the rudeness so often shown in society to reach out and help each other. Whether it is holding someone’s head while they are sick on the lawn — yes, I have seen this happen — or giving up an extra set of tickets, country music fans will touch your heart.

The rest of the concert went off without a hitch. I got a kiss on the cheek from Joe Don Rooney, my favorite Rascal, ran into another friend and nearly lost my voice from screaming so loud. But when I look back at that night, the thing that stands out to me the most isn’t the great music or the blast I had with my friends.

No, it’s Nathan’s kindness. And while one day, my mother’s dream may come true and I’ll quit listening to country music, that’s what will still stick with me.

If you lost your girl, your truck or your dog, e-mail Daveen your sob story at drk974@pitt.edu and maybe she’ll write you a country song.