Parrot Mania

Shelley and I attended the Jimmy Buffet concert last night. If I were to ever switch careers and become an anthropologist his fan following would be a fascinating case study. The show was great but the real treat came from people watching.

Jimmy Buffet is one of those artists, like Phish or the Dead, that don't see much commercial success but have a tremendous and loyal following. So while bands like U2 or ColdPlay make a killing on album sales, performers like Buffet are constantly touring and feeding off of their devoted followings. And these devoted fans definitely make the price of admission worth it.

Most Buffet fans are in their 40's and 50's. Almost all are Caucasian and middle class. These are people who, on any other day you'd expect to run into at Home Depot, have completely embraced the escape Jimmy's tropical sounds. The concerts allow them to forget about their mundane suburban lifestyles and drink insane amounts of alcohol, all while wearing parrot hats and flowered shirts. This is escapism at its finest. Inhibitions are out the window and people are carried far away from reality. We could make some serious money by videotaping and blackmailing random people in the audience. We just sat back and enjoyed the view.

I agree that escapism comes in many forms- sports, other forms of music, gardening, etc...- but it is hard to argue that there is anything more entertaining than watching Jimmy Buffet fans forget about reality and become drunken pirates. It's a real cultural treat. Oh yeah, and the concert wasn't that bad either.