I just have one thing on my mind on this bright and beautiful Sunday morning:  LOUISVILLE FANS SUCK.

Those of you who have been reading Joe’s blog already know that we went to see Springsteen in Nashville on Thursday night, and that it was a fantastic concert.  Bruce is an amazing showman.  It was a great place to see him because everyone there seemed to be there to see Bruce.  When he talked, they got quiet.  They sang along with songs and got on their feet and danced, but even a short person like me never had any problem seeing the stage or not getting trampled on.  People were very considerate.

In contrast, last night we went to Louisville to see Dylan.  It was actually just outside Louisville, across the river in New Albany, but it’s still close enough that Louisvillians swarmed the place.  It was a horrible show.  The concert was outdoors, so people had plenty of room to move, yet they didn’t want to move to the music–they just wanted to move their mouths.  The people behind us and beside me would not shut up.  They carried on the most idiotic conversations at top volume during every song, discussing important things like who was going to go on their next beer run and how much beer they really wanted.  We couldn’t even hear Dylan sometimes.  At one point, we moved down a seat to try to hear better, and the guy next to me immediately leaped into my seat.  Joe leaned across me and shouted at him for a few seconds until he aplogized and scooted back down.  He quickly volunteered to get away from us for more beer for the group, but of course very little changed when he got back.  The whole experience got me thinking about my frustrations with Louisville fans in general. 

The thing is, I love Louisville.  I lived there for the first three years of my married life, and I still think of it as my adopted hometown.  It’s a fantastic city.  I just don’t understand why people who are normally so civilized and pleasant to be around can so entirely lose their brains when they get in crowds of people.  The last Dylan concert we saw in Louisville, in the parking lot at Jillian’s, was typical of this fan base.  Dylan’s performance was great–at least what I could hear of it.  It was another outdoor concert, but the fans somehow still managed to drown out the music.  People were smoking everything but their shoelaces.  Stinky, sweaty, beer soaked men were everywhere.  One man waved a copy of Catcher in the Rye and begged his friends to burn him with cigarette lighters.  By the time Dylan reached the middle of his set, I had beer running down my legs and splashed on my shirt.  Incoherent screamers were out in full force.

I considered that maybe it was just the Dylan crowd–he does bring out some odd people, although these two Louisville area shows were definitely the most miserable of the six Dylan shows I’ve seen.  But then I remembered the year we had season tickets to U of L football.  Every game could have been a Dylan concert–the mood was the same.  People showed up drunk and just kept drinking.  Fights broke out at almost every game.  When people wanted more beer, they threw empty cups at the beer vendor.  They screamed obscenities at no one in particular, causing parents to hurry their little children down the bleachers.  The team wasn’t bad, but the fans made the games a misery.  Last year at the UK/UofL game in Lexington, fans couldn’t buy beer inside the stadium, so people in red stood in clumps grouching about the inherent unfairness of expecting anyone to watch football sober.

I know people go to games and concerts to have a good time, and I’m all for that.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with a little beer and conversation with friends.  But when I go to a game or a concert, I want to SEE what I bought the ticket to see.  I don’t need to have people blocking my view so they can re-count their beer orders three times, or listen to someone cussing at the top of his lungs for the sheer pleasure of hearing his own voice.  Have some consideration, people.  That’s all I’m asking.