I took the kids to their very first concert last night…

If you live in or near Philadelphia and have never been to a show at The First Unitarian Church, you’re missing out. This place is by far the coolest place I’ve ever seen a musical act. It’s a real church (yep, you can do the worship thingie there every Sunday if you want) but it’s like no church I’ve ever seen. It’s old (established in 1796) and colorful (check out that photo I snapped last night…those colors are real) and the acoustics are otherworldly.

St. Vincent, one of my favorite performers ever, played last night (Swedish duo Wildbirds and Peacedrums opened for her and holy moly, were they awesome.) and it was the first show I took both of the girls, ages 9 and 12, to. We sat in a pew no more than 10 feet away from the stage and the view and sound was spectacular. Annie Clark sounded angelic (wow, I’m totally dropping all of these church references accidentally, I swear!) but the best part of the night by far for me was seeing Lola’s reaction to the entire event. My sarcastic, often-sullen tween was mesmerized. She was happy. She smiled and clapped and sat on the edge of her seat the entire time. She couldn’t wait to buy a tee shirt and when we arrived home around 11:45, she promptly updated her Facebook status to read “Just got back from a St. Vincent show!!! EPIC!!!!!! : {D” By far, it was one of the proudest parenting moments of my career. Now she wants to learn the guitar. Words can’t express how amazing I feel about this.

R5 Productions booked the event and, as usual, did a fantastic job. The shows at First Unitarian are all ages and the average ticket price is $15, so you can take your kids or younger siblings or current hottie out without getting a second job to pay for it. I saw Metric here in the basement about four years ago and it blew my mind. R5 Productions deserves lots of love and praise; they’re responsible for helping to bring brilliant artists to our city at a price that most of us can afford.

Last night was a historic event for my girls and me. We all remember our first concert (mine was Shaun Cassidy in Raleigh, NC). How fitting that theirs was in such a special place.