A long time ago in a concert hall not so far away…

The Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra put on a Star Wars themed performance this weekend.  Michael and I have been planning on attending since we first learned about the concert earlier this year.

Michael, along with his older brother and their closest friends, grew up loving Star Wars.  This past year they had a count down until the release of Episode VII and bought 30 tickets for opening night for their friends and family.  They then proceeded to stay in their seats to immediately watch the next showing.

Now, I definitely did not spend the hours learning Star Wars Trivia or playing Star Wars card games that they did.  And honestly, I really only saw Episodes I-III once.  But my parents owned the original trilogy (on video cassette tapes), and I would watch them semi-regularly growing up.  So although I don’t necessarily have the same emotional response to the series as my husband, I do enjoy a good space adventure and Star Wars meets that need.

I remember once in the very early days of our relationship, back when it was still just a friendship, I impressed (or at least imagined that I impressed) Michael and his friends by knowing what a Tauntaun was.  However, that might be the limit of my Star Wars trivia knowledge.   Needless to say, however, I was really hoping Michael could enter the trivia game because I thought he might actually do pretty well.

This plan didn’t exactly work out for us.  We were supposed to have tickets at will-call, but somehow in the mix of things, those tickets never actually got printed.  We ended up having to wait in the purchase ticket line to retrieve our tickets.  Normally that would not bother me, but because of the extra hold up, despite getting to the civic center 30 minutes early, we still missed the opportunity to enter the trivia game.  That was, of course, a little disappointing.

Also, trying to find your seats after everyone has been seated is a minor fiasco.  I don’t think we ever actually found our ticketed seats, but we settled in two free seats close to an entrance.

Despite the early setbacks, the show itself was very good.  The musicians really are the reason to attend a philharmonic performance.  Hearing a familiar score played live brings so much life to the familiar notes.  I’m thankful Abilene has an organization like this one that values the inimitable quality of live music.

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