My Midlife Crisis Tour 2019 – Miami

After two stops on my 2019 midlife crisis tour – Atlanta and Orlando – it was time to head to the final stop in Miami. Monday around 1pm, after some work calls, I was in the Caddy heading south. The drive towards Miami on the Turnpike was much slower than the ride north, made seemingly much slower with the lack of quality radio. Also, for some reason, the bugs were out in force. The sound of bugs smashing against my windshield sounded like I was driving through my own personal hailstorm. I’m not kidding, a few of those impacts sounded like bird strikes. I had just thought that soon I wasn’t going to be able to see through the windshield when a fierce downpour scoured my windshield clean. But it did little for the grill of the car. By the time I rolled into Miami, the front of my white Cadillac looked like salt and pepper.

I stayed at the Royal Palm Miami Beach, walking distance to the concert venue. Even though I am still a Titanium Elite member and paid for a balcony oceanfront room, I got stuck with the tiniest balcony that you could only sit sideways on. At some point, I will learn not to worry about obtaining hotel status and just book the cute boutique hotels instead. Fortunately, I did assert myself and got a higher floor so my view was great at least (as long as I stood because if I sat, I ended up looking at the side of the building).

After finishing up my work day, I went for a walk on the beach. It was heavenly sinking my toes into the sand and feeling the warm ocean water wash over my feet. After my walk, I treated myself to a mojito at the hotel pool bar. I’m not exactly sure what the heck was going on poolside, but it was like a Glee Club 50-year reunion. Seriously, a group of 12 older people were all gathered around a table (that had three buckets of beer) and singing what sounded like alma mater songs – for 2 straight hours. The bartender was beside himself because he couldn’t leave the bar. I was weirdly fascinated but incredibly relieved when they finished. Apparently one of the sopranos birthed the most annoying 8 year old kid who yelled “Mom” for ten minutes straight (she looked 60 so either it was a miracle baby or she really needs to apply sunscreen). I was about to abandon my mojito and drown the kid when another patron at the bar yelled at him to shut it. Thanks for the birth control lady…

Not relaxed in the slightest after that, I headed inside to sit on my super tiny balcony and enjoy the evening windstorm breezes. After my hair got completely tangled, I went out in search of dinner. Note to any Miami Beach tourists in search of pizza, wherever you end up do not order the garlic knots. I swear, I’ve ordered garlic knots in pretty much every little pizza shop in Miami Beach over the years and not one of those orders resulted in anything edible. What a horrible waste of dough and garlic…

The next morning, I worked for a bit and then decided to take my lunch break at the beach. I spent 15 minutes lathering up the SPF and waiting for it to kick in before claiming a beach chair on the sand. I never actually went into the water, but just listened to the sound of the waves breaking. The guy on the set of chairs next to me did something that broke my willpower…he ordered a pina colada and I had to flag down the beach attendant to order one for myself. I don’t make it a practice to drink during a workday, but I was much more calm for my afternoon meetings.

Around 6pm, my friend that I had sat next to during the Orlando show texted to tell me she was in Miami Beach. We wandered down Lincoln Road Mall, idly searching for a place to grab a drink and a snack before the concert. While chatting over mojitos, we discovered that we had quite a bit in common. Aside from the Adam Ant concert-going, we both love ice hockey, spent time traipsing through Europe solo, worked in creative industries, and have similar outlooks on life. It got weird in the “are you single white female-ing me or are we really sisters separated at birth” sense. It got even weirder when we realized that we were once again sitting next to each other during the show. The universe must have really wanted us to become friends or something.

The show was held at the Fillmore Miami Beach in an old art-deco building. The DJ was spinning reggae at the entrance and I was certain we were in the wrong place. Nope… We took our seats and waited for Adam Ant to take the stage. Let me say this right now, I love Miami and always feel like I’m home when I’m there. But this crowd reminded me why I dislike Miami; the crowd was full of poseurs – some dude dressed like a WalMart Kid Rock, ladies who apparently only knew two songs but acted like Adam was about to hustle them onto his tour bus if only they could shove me out of the way, couples that apparently were only there to make out, and the dude behind us who chanted “Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful” (an Ant song from the early 90s) like a drunk chanting Freebird at a Skynyrd concert. Apparently no one else besides me, my new friend and the band realized that the Friend or Foe tour meant the band was actually going to play the Friend or Foe album in its entirety. If I heard “what’s this song” one more time from the trio of heavily-botoxed ladies in front of us, I was going to strangle them with their hair extensions.

And that was a shame because the band was amped up for this, the final show in the U.S. 2019 tour. Honestly, they deserved better than a crowd that left even before the encore. I rocked out the entire time but felt oddly conspicuous, a feeling that I honestly hadn’t felt in any previous show I attended.

After the show ended, my new friend and I walked towards the beach, dissecting the night’s strange crowd. We made our way to a swanky beachfront hotel bar where the bartender overcharged me at the end of the night. Everything about the night felt off, except for the fact that we talked so much that it was 2:30am before we left to head to our respective hotels.

This midlife crisis tour was a bit of an anomaly for me. Meeting and befriending people hadn’t happened on previous tours. Sure, I chatted with people but never the next day. It was a nice change. And we’re even talking about getting together on Adam Ant tour stops in 2020.