Why I'm not cool. (And also a list of my TOP 5 Dream Concerts.)

I feel like it's time to set the record straight: I'm not cool.

There. I said it.

I did not arrive to music-writing via The Ramones or The Violent Femmes or any sort underground railroad of coolness. (I took the bus marked "reeeeeeeallyy dorky youth group girl" through the mid-80's, walked the rain-soaked sidewalk of "painfully-self-evualuating-20-something" in the mid-90's, and rode in a gas-guzzling SUV blaring, more-or-less bad radio as the new millenium approached.) I didn't begin to find my musical self until, well, a handful of years ago. (And, don't worry--now I drive a Honda.)

I didn't have my first real oh-this-is-what's-so-terrific-about-live-music experience until a year or so ago. Pete and I went to see Robert Earl Keen with some friends at a big hamburger place/music venue that mostly sets up for college kids and we yelled our heads off (okay, maybe it was just me yelling my head off) and squished up to the edge of the stage and screamed CHRISTMAS SONG (because that is one of his best, after all) and we left sweaty and when I walked out I thought, "That's what people mean when they say they like to go to shows."

My best concert before that one? Get ready: Amy Grant. Hold on. Here's the deal. There was a time (back in the pre-Baby-Baby/per-Vince-Gill/pre-bad-pop days) when she was the voice of one girl talking from her heart for those of us in jr. high who couldn't. I know I loved that concert for the same reason we all love concerts--somebody's up there pouring your heart out for you, or yelling or laughing their head off for you: it's you up there. Really, it's you.

Here are the five concerts on my list that I really want to see before it's all over for me:

#5: Robert Earl Keen again. That one was easy.

#4: Gillean Welch. This girl sings real songs. And I would want to see her in a bar with those wagon wheel tables and wood chips on the floor.

#2:Dan Zanes. I've never seen him, and I think he's doing with his life what many of us want to be doing: having a good time while he's helping other people have a good time too--plus I want to get up close enough to figure out what product he uses to get his hair to stand up like that.

#3:Daniel Lanois & Emmy Lou Harris together. This would be a sort of marriage-dream come true--my all-time favorite artist singing with my husband's all-time favorite. I would need backstage passes to make this dream real. And a new outfit. Yeah. And cowboy boots for Pete. Yeah.

#1:Barbra Streisand. It's true--this will be the real concert event of my lifetime. ALL THAT DRAMA! I will have experience YEARS of emotion just by SITTING (and, um, paying $1000). It will be the pinacle of the-artist-feels-for-me experiences. Really.

There. I said it. Now you know.