A father’s dispatch from the front row (literally) of rock and roll history
Let me set the scene. Thursday night. Fletcher Hall. Downtown Durham. Three members of the family, united by one common purpose: to witness the Electric Light Orchestra — or more precisely, The Orchestra Starring ELO and ELO Part II Former Members, which is what you name a band when you want to be technically accurate and also make it impossible to print on a marquee.
Front row. Left orchestra. We were so close I could see the drummer’s soul.
My daughter Ashlyn has loved ELO ever since I sent her a couple of ELO albums while she was on an EF Tour to Greece and Italy. Was I trying to be the coolest dad alive? Obviously. Did it work? She cried multiple times during the concert, so I’m going to say yes. She also thought every member of ELO was dead, which made seeing them perform live significantly more dramatic. “They’re ALIVE!” she said. Ashlyn had genuinely believed she’d missed her chance — that ELO were gone, all of them, lost to time. She was wrong. And the look on her face when that sank in was something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
My son Mason is 15 and had not eaten dinner.
“He hadn’t had dinner yet and thought sugar was the perfect solution.”
— actual thing that happened to an actual human in 2026
I bought those Sour Patch Kids for Ashlyn. I want that on the record. They were purchased with love, for a girl who was actively weeping tears of joy at a rock concert. What happened next was not my fault.
Mason — a 15-year-old athlete who plays basketball better than anyone I know and should honestly know better — descended on those candy sours like a feral raccoon who had just discovered a gas station dumpster. The entire bag. Gone. In what seemed like seconds. I watched it happen in real time and could not intervene fast enough. It was like watching a nature documentary where you know the gazelle is doomed and the narrator just keeps narrating calmly over the carnage.
He turned to me approximately four seconds later and said — and I quote — “I feel like I’m going to barf. I ate too many Sour Patch Kids.”
Son. My son. My beautiful, tall basketball-playing son. Ladies and gentlemen: the next generation.
He retreated to the lobby, downed an entire bottle of water, and eventually recovered enough to return to his seat, where he presumably spent the second half of the show reconsidering his dietary choices while Mik Kaminski played a legendary blue violin ten feet in front of him.
Then came The Drumstick Incident.
“Thrice I urged him. The mission was simple: two feet left, two feet forward. A drumstick for his weeping sister. Glory within reach. On push one, he did not move. On push two, he turned and looked at me — not at the drumstick, not at the drummer, not at Ashlyn — at ME. As if I were the confusing part of this situation. On push three, he remained cemented. A man of 75 collected the drumstick. He did not have a weeping daughter. He did not deserve it. An old man got the drumstick, Mason.”
— a father’s lament, carved into the annals of rock history
After the final song, the drummer began handing out his drumsticks to the first people who came forward. We were in the front row of the section right behind the pit. This was a layup. A gimme. A gift from the rock gods themselves.
I looked at Mason. I indicated, with every tool available to a loving father — words, gestures, possibly telepathy — that he should take two small steps to the left and then two small steps forward and retrieve that drumstick for his sister, who was still emotionally processing that ELO members are, in fact, alive.
Mason’s version of events is that I kept shoving him into the barrier wall and that somehow made it impossible to step to the left and then forward to the drumstick being handed to the first person that would take it. My version is that I was providing enthusiastic directional encouragement. The barrier wall does not have a comment. An old man got the drumstick. He did not deserve it more than Ashlyn. I cannot prove this legally but I know it in my heart.
We gave Mason significant grief about this on the walk back to the car. He maintained that being nudged toward a small concrete barrier did not clarify that he was supposed to step left and then forward to receive a souvenir for his sister. We maintain that this is obvious. This debate will likely never be resolved and will be brought up at Thanksgiving for the next thirty years.
For the record: ELO was magnificent. Ashlyn and I spent $150 on merchandise including T-shirts, a CD, a digital album memento, and — the crown jewel — a poster signed by every single member of the band. It now exists. It is real. Ashlyn held it like it was the actual Holy Grail and I don’t blame her one bit.
As for me, ELO first entered my life when my parents took me and my brothers to England and Ireland as kids, and I came home clutching cassette tapes like they were treasure. I listened to them on my Sony Walkman every chance I got. I did not know then that decades later I’d be sitting in basically the front row of a theater in Durham, North Carolina, watching the remnants of that same band play those same songs while my daughter cried and my son silently regretted all of his choices.
10 out of 10. Would recommend. Buy your kid some Sour Patch Kids.
Just maybe buy them some dinner first.
The Orchestra Starring ELO and ELO Part II Former Members performed at Fletcher Hall in Durham, NC on April 2, 2026. No drumsticks were obtained. The Sour Patch Kids were beyond saving.
