My love of moshing

Posted by Mark:

You know how you go through phases in life? Like on my mission I went through a grilled cheese sandwich phase where I ate two grilled cheese sandwiches with a bowl of top ramen every day for lunch. That lasted a few months but I soon grew tired of it and moved onto my next food phase. Well, when I got home from my mission I went through a concert phase (I know the concert and grilled cheese sandwich phase don’t exactly relate well but food phases are the only thing I can think of right now). Anyway, I got home and was trying to get back into the whole “music scene.” Mostly trying to figure out who I liked and who I didn’t.

So after a bit of research and suggestions from my good friend Chris Leppert, I started listening to a few bands to which I soon quite enjoyed. Shortly thereafter I found out that these bands would be coming to town and playing in extremely small venues. This was unusual and new for me because before this time I had only been to two concerts in my life. Dave Mathews Band and Depeshe Mode. Both these concerts were held in the E-center where you were restricted to the seat your ticket told you to sit (not that fun). However, after going to these smaller venues, I fell in love with the entire concert experience that these relatively obscure bands brought.

I loved how close you could get to the stage by just muscling your way forward through the throngs of people. I loved being surrounded by fellow fans that would yell out the lyrics to the songs just as loud as I would. I loved the loud music that resonated throughout my body. But most of all I loved the mosh pits. Now most of you might think this is stupid and extremely violent, but anyone that participates regularly in mosh pits will agree that there are several different levels of mosh pitting. These different levels ranged from the simple group of people just jumping up and down in unison all the way to the better known and violent kinds that consisted of people throwing powerful fists and elbows causing serious pain and discomfort. I tended to stick to the mid level mosh pits. There was just something fun about jumping around pushing others about and the occasional crowd surfing that made the evening extremely rewarding.

I really couldn’t tell you how many concerts I went to during this little phase in life but it was a lot! If I had to pick a favorite concert it would have to be the Dashboard Confessional concert back in 2005. This concert was at a private party hosted by Le-Tigre clothing up in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. Not only is Dashboard my absolute favorite band ever, I think I enjoyed this specific concert so much because I randomly stumbled upon it while reading the newspaper. At first I was disheartened to learn that it was a private party and there was no amount of money that one could pay to get tickets (believe me I know because I tried bribing anyone I talked to). I wasn’t about to let this bit of bad news stop me. To make a long story short, I went up to Park City anyway and hung around outside the venue for almost 3 hours in the freezing cold of January. Then just before throwing in the towel and return home defeated, almost commando like, I masterfully devised a plan in which I jumped a wall, hid behind a sign, and ran out of sight behind at least a dozen 300 pound bouncers (who also wouldn’t be bribed) until I emerged victorious inside the venue free to enjoy the concert to my liking. Looking back I think I was on an adrenalin high from the sneaking into the concert, but couple that with the fact that this was the first time I had seen my favorite band live... you get the best concert ever!

Like most phases in life I matured and grew out of it. I got tired of finding a few dozen bruises all over my body the next day, I got tired of being squished and surrounded by 1000 sweaty adolescent kids. But most of all I think what changed me was having a serious girlfriend/wife. Kimmi wasn’t exactly blessed with the height gene so when she got into those kinds of crowds she would be swallowed by the people around her (Side note by Kimmi: I used to like mosh pits until the horrible day that a 300 lb sweaty man was dropped on me while he was trying to crowd surf. I vowed never again!) So yeah I cared greatly for my wife's safety. We still went to a few concerts here and there, but tried to stay away from the large hoards of people. Lastly, moving to Twin Falls didn’t help much. If you can imagine, south eastern Idaho isn’t exactly a hot bed for band tours.

Now upon moving back to Salt Lake we will once again have the chance to start attending a few select concerts here and there and last week Kimmi was gracious enough to alert me of an impromptu Dashboard Confessional concert at our favorite Venue “In the Venue” (not really a clever name for a venue). When Kimmi called to tell me of the event, I nearly fell off my chair in the excitement of trying to hang up from the voice message that she left and getting online to buy tickets! I quickly had two tickets and looked forward to the next day’s concert. The reason we love this specific venue so much is because we can avoid the herd of people congregating around the stage and head straight up to their over 21 balcony level that wraps around the entire building. Up here we have a great view and we were able to get a great seat perched high in the rafters to just enjoy the music without being surrounded by psycho teenagers.

The concert was fantastic. It was an acoustic set in which he played songs predominantly from his first few albums (the albums I love the most). Even the opening band was a group that Kimmi and I strongly enjoy so the entire evening was a huge success. I walked away, as usual, without a voice and extremely satisfied with my return to the SLC concert scene.

Conclusion: Hands down the 2nd best concert I’ve ever been to!

P.S. If you recall from my last post our camera is out of juice so we were unable to personally take photos of the event. Luckily, we sat next to a nice couple who upon asking us if we’d take a photo of them, agreed in return to take a photo of us and email it to me after the show. Personally, I think we got the better end of the deal.Here are the photos! Enjoy.

Here we are in our great seats. As you can see we were literally in the rafters. The bench we sat on was at least six feet above the balcony I spoke of in the post.

This is the opening band New Found Glory. They said that this was the first acoustic tour they've ever done and found it different not to see the entire crowd mosh pitting to their songs. They were a very funny band live. PLease notice the formal wear they decided on just for us.

And this is the ah-inspiring Dashboard Confessional. I think this is now the fourth time I've seen him live. Great, great, band. Love it.

REALLY long update about the Dibb family. Grab a chair and a glass of eggnog cause you have a lot to read today!

Posted by Mark:

As a great deal of you most likely know, Kimmi and I are officially back living and working in SLC. I’d like to declare that my slackness in updating my blog is entirely due to the fact that we’ve been quite busy re-acclimating to some sort of normalcy in our day to day life. I can’t say that we are fully back to that point, but when the day comes that you start getting people coming up to you and asking why we haven’t updated our blog in so long, you know it’s time to take a few minutes and give a bit of an update.

I’ll warn you in advance that if you were looking forward to some lovely photos that you are so used to seeing on our blog then you will most likely be sorely disappointed. I anticipate this post to be entirely words. Truly one of the worst parts about moving is that you lose all competency as to where your stuff is or what box you packed which item. Such is the story with our camera charger. The battery on the camera is dead and we are 50% sure as to which box the charger is packed in but we are 0% sure as to where the box is placed inside Ken and Linda’s garage. In the next few days we should be relocating all the boxes currently residing in the garage to our newly built shed(see below), so we should be able to find the cord at that point (or at least we’ll know for sure if it’s in the box we think it is in).

Upon leaving the lovely town of Twin Falls we have placed our beloved home for sale and until the house sells we will not be able to purchase a new home (because who wants to pay two mortgage payments!! Not me). So until that bitter sweet day arrives we have planted our roots in the basement of Kimmi’s parents house in Murray. Our living arrangements may be tight, but I can’t complain to its freeness and the fact that on most nights Kimmi’s mom makes a fantastic home cooked meal for dinner. Due to our lack of storage space almost all of our known possessions are stored in the garage. Not wanting to plug up Ken and Linda’s garage for a few months Kimmi came up with a brilliant idea. Instead of throwing perfectly good money away to the monthly fee of a storage unit we would purchase a relatively inexpensive shed to erect on the side of the house and store all the stuff in there. Then after we find a new place to live we can either take the shed with us, sell the shed to Ken and Linda to use at their own personal convenience, OR sell it to Joe Schmo on craigslist. Thus saving the all mighty $$.

We spent a great deal of our Thanksgiving weekend building this shed and after hundreds and hundreds of screws and bolts we were almost completely done! It took about two more after work evenings to complete the entire project. I must point out that Kimmi is a fantastic site supervisor. She kept me from the frustration of trying to decipher the gibberish (a.k.a. Instructions) as well as keeping me from the many times that I felt that I knew best and wanted to jimmy rig a solution to a problem that could easily be solved by referring to the above gibberish. Granted, my ideas would have worked, but in the long run I probably would have made it worse. I think we spent a good 10 hours building this thing not including the time I spent building a lovely wooden foundation for it to rest on. When it is done we will be ready to free the garage from the clutter that is our stuff and of course replace it with the items that are our cars. I think Kimmi and I could both do without having to go start our frigid cars each morning so we don’t die of frostbite on the way to the Trax station.

Yes you did read correctly, we are taking Trax to work every day! This is especially new and unusual for me due to the fact that I used to have a dead set resolve to never in my life ride Utah’s light rail system. Not that I don’t think Trax is a wonderful thing for Salt Lake, I just liked the look on peoples face when I told them of my quest (since for so long Trax had no convenience for me). It was easy to go these 10 years without riding the thing. Oh well, 10 years is a pretty good run. Anyway on to what we’re doing in life. Kimmi has a great job at the University of Utah Hospital in their H&I Lab. Don’t ask me to spell out what the letters “H” and “I” mean because I can barely say them as words let alone put them on paper. All I know is that she works in the lab that deals with organ transplants where she gets to test their compatibilities to potential patients. She loves it. Not only is it something new and exciting for her to learn but she doesn’t have to work ridiculous hours. We are starting to live what a great majority of the world calls a normal life. 8 to 5 Monday through Friday with weekends and holidays off! It’s great.

As for me, after deciding to give up the car business, I applied myself to much pondering and research as to what I wanted to do with my future professional career. It was quite odd to be 26 and not have an answer to the question so commonly asked throughout childhood “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Anyway, among my searching, I found myself continually drawn wherever I looked to the Procurement & Purchasing profession. Upon deciding that this was my new calling in life I began applying to a bunch of jobs here, there, and everywhere. I soon had the frightful realization that I wasn’t exactly looking for a new career during the best time of US history. Thankfully my grandfather caught word that I was looking for a job and it just so happened he is currently heading up a ginormous worldwide organization. Like the fantastic grandfather that he is, he lined me up a few interviews in a few of the departmental areas I was interested in and Voila! I’m now working for the Church in their Materials Management Department! Specifically I work on a team called the Global Supply Chain Management Team who at the moment are spearheading the effort to create an e-store for the Distribution Center in order to replace the old one and make it more user-friendly and more widely used. I would tell you more about what I do but I doubt you’d find it as fascinating as Kimmi’s organ transplant stuff. Regardless I must say that I am extremely pleased with the job and I lavish in the plethora of knowledge I get to work around on a daily basis. Truly it’s like being in college again, without the nasty amount of tests and homework that I so hated.

Anyway, life is good and what an incredibly interesting year it’s been at the Mark & Kimmi Dibb home! It’s not every day you flip your world upside down but we’ve come out on the other side alive and happy. We are excited to back in Utah among friends and family. Of course we are sad to leave our house behind in Idaho and the close friends we made there but in the long run we feel it’s the best move for ourselves and our one-day down the road family. I hope I did a good enough job authoring our update. If you have any questions don’t be shy to ask. I probably forgot something! Sorry again that it’s all just words. Maybe I’ll try to find some photo that we took on our camera before it gave up the ghost.

Here you go! I felt bad that I didn't post any photos so I found this one that we took at Ken and Linda's house before the camera died....this is Beatrice's new favorite place to sleep.