Going to a Concert?
Call a Babysitter

The kickoff to this year’s An Appalachian Summer Festival was last Saturday’s fantastic concert at Farthing Auditorium featuring Doc Watson & Friends and The Sam Bush Band. I attended the show with my dad and my brother and all of us agreed that Doc was at the top of his game as he performed a number of lesser-known songs from his vast repertoire. Doc sang some folk fan favorites such as “Shady Grove” and “St. James Infirmary” but also mixed in some tunes that I’d be lying to you if I said I knew the titles of.

There was one about a cat who always came back to the farm no matter what its owner tried to do it and another funny one about a single boring day being pretty much like the boring day before it.

Doc Watson kicked off An Appalachian Summer Festival last weekend with a show at Farthing Auditorium in Boone. The festival continues through July 29th. Photo by Jeff Eason

I’ve seen Doc Watson dozens of times during the past thirty years and last Saturday’s show was one of his best. He traded licks with his grandson, Richard Watson, and longtime sideman Jack Lawrence, and generally had a good time playing in front of his hometown crowd. His voice was strong and his guitar-playing was superb, making everyone at Farthing forget that they were listening to someone who was born in 1923. One day he’s going to retire from the stage and all those people who missed their chance to see Doc will be kicking themselves in their collective derriere.

Maybe that was the reasoning behind the young couple sitting behind us in Farthing Auditorium who brought their three pre-kindergarten children to the concert with them. Maybe they thought they were doing their kids a favor so that one day in the future they could tell their friends they saw Doc Watson when they were an infant.

All I know is that they weren’t doing anyone else in the audience any favors. The entire time that Watson and his musical friends were playing, two of these young kids were acting like they were at a pre-school playground. Between the screaming, seat-kicking, and surprisingly noisy breast-feeding going on, many of us in that section of seats struggled to hear the concert.

Right before the end of the Doc Watson portion of the show, some other seats opened up and we were able to move far enough away from this family that they were not quite as distracting as they had been when we were sitting directly in front of them.

Okay folks, let me explain the rules as I see them. I know you think your little bundles o’ joy are getting the cultural experience of their young lifetimes but for them it is probably about as much fun as sitting perfectly still in church for two hours with the lights off. I don’t blame these kids for making noise. I blame their parents for having the gall to bring them in the first place.

What were you thinking? That your two-year-old would sit on your lap and quietly enjoy Doc’s rendition of Kris Kristofferson’s “For The Good Times?” That your three-year-old would resist the temptation to kick every thing his little legs could reach?

Apparently, some parents see their children differently from the rest of us. They are constantly on alert for baby snatchers, people who would like nothing more than to steal their sticky-faced infant from their $500 stroller and raise it as their own. I’m here to tell you that such baby thieves are mostly imaginary, the product of fairy tales and bad television. 99.9% of us just want to get through our day without having some acquaintance thrust their toddler into our arms with the phrase, “Can you hold her for a second while I run to the bathroom?”

With that in mind, I understand that there will be situations where you will want to bring your kids with you to a live music event. Generally speaking, the rest of us are more welcoming of them in an outdoor festival setting than in a quiet concert hall like Farthing Auditorium. Of course, if you take your kid to a smoky bar to see a live band that doesn’t start until 11:30 p.m., you might have the authorities to answer to, but that’s your business.

I’m just saying that there should to be some solutions to this problem. Instead of making children’s tickets cheaper to music events, I think they should be at least twice as expensive. That way, parents will give a little bit more weight to the babysitter option (they still exist, don’t they?).

Perhaps all parents with kids should be made to sit together in a section of the auditorium that is cordoned off from the rest of us. There the little tykes will be free to slurp on their juice boxes, kick their seats, and ask their parents if the old man playing guitar on stage is Santa Claus.

Then I’ll be able to listen to all of the nuances of Doc Watson’s voice as he yodels a timeless Jimmie Rodgers train song. That’s all I’m asking for. Thanks for your consideration.