Rodeo

Last night, SWMBO and I accompanied our friends the C's to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo last night. The Rodeo is a Ciudad El Jefe institution, and almost always puts on events worth attending. We wandered around the carnival, drank a little beer, looked at the knick-knacks on sale in the Exhibit Hall, had dinner, and then wandered into Reliant Stadium to hear Fergie.

Now, El Jefe (when he listens to music) generally listens to XM Satellite Radio, or his own considerable music collection. El Jefe's preferred musical entertainment collection is somewhat eclectic, heavily sauced with lots of 80's stuff, a good deal of classical music, some country, a big soundtrack collection, and weird things like the occasional album of Deutsche Marschmusik or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. One of the downsides to these habits is that, by virtue of market segmentation and, er, eccentricity -- El Jefe is perhaps less aware of what is new, and gets somewhat culturally disconnected. In general, I don't see this as too much of a loss, but there are exceptions. In any case, I didn't know much about Fergie, other than what I'd heard from occasional blasts from the Heir's I-Pod or whatever that thing is. Somewhat to my own surprise, I was very impressed, although perhaps the beer helped.

The audience had a lot of kids (teens and adolescents) many of whom were up far past what should have been their proper bedtimes. They, of course, loved Fergie, and were dancing in the aisles, but she didn't leave the adults out either, playing some Led Zeppelin and some Heart so that us fogies felt included also. Fergie put on a really good show, and gave the audience their money's worth.