The Sweetest thing! Lily and I bonding at U2 concert…
I’m a dude and I have three daughters. Immutable facts and I wouldn’t change them for anything. However, being the only male in my household has, at times, left me feeling like an outsider. For example, when the children were younger and collectively into “princesses” (or what I call the purple and pink years) I could NOT relate. I distrusted Disney before the girls were born and grew more disturbed by the “House of Mouse” as their DVD’s piled up in our den along with cheaply made castles and myriad other crap. (I’m guessing if one has boys the corollary would be armies of action figures and I can’t deny that that wouldn’t test my nerves either. Princess or Transformer, stepping on one in the middle of the night sucks equally.)
Mercifully, save for nail polishes, my girls have aged out of the purple and pink. Yet, I still must look hard for things they love that I can relate to. Like their mother, they like romantic comedies and reality TV. Guess again if you think I’m ever gonna watch The Bachelor.
During our drives together we listen to their music, Top 40, which is what you’d expect for tween and teen girls. No surprise little of it does anything for me. However, I can and do give props to Katie Perry & Taylor Swift for making solid pop songs. Additionally, these young mega stars are clearly in control of their careers, which sends a good message, empowering to young women. But I ain’t a girl.
So, I was very pleased to find the girls listening to U2’s new album, Songs of Innocence; and even more excited to take them to see the band’s latest tour, last week in San Jose. None of this would have happened, by the way, if U2 had not freely delivered their album to iTunes – a move, which, in my view, had been unfairly criticized by many of you.
U2 show cool enough even for teen girls…
Taking them to a rock concert, especially one as notable as U2, is a moment in time we will never forget. Emphasis on “we.” In my opinion, doing this with them will resonate as an iconic daddy-daughter moment. More so than family dinners or vacations, which though hugely important, are pieces of a bigger mosaic. In the emotionally segregated domains of popular culture, with U2’s music and concert, we finally and truly had something in common and were able to share it!
