IMPORTANT NOTICE: If I find out that anyone have used pictures of my kids in their websites for legal, illegal, porn or professional, directly or indirectly for purposes that I have not agreed to, they will incurr the wrath of a very protective mother. Do not fiddle with the pictures, use them, copy them, manipulate them...they are the pictures of my kids. If you want to use them, please send me an email beforehand and obtain my consent first. Thanks

Barney concert :: 8th August 2004

Boy oh boy, did we have a good time last night or what?! You're asking - what did you do? Pray tell! Well, it wasn't exactly a trip to Disneyland but we have a trip to Barneyland instead.

After much consideration, I bought 3 tickets to a Barney concert some time back…front row tickets costing me about RM200 (USD53) each ticket. By any standard, that was an expensive ticket. Even if my favorite singer came to town, I doubt I'd even invest in such a high-class ticket willingly. But this time, I did. For one thing, Jared is already 2 plus and Joshua is 4 plus, so, by the time Barney makes his next stop here, they may no longer be interested in Barney. I am not in any particular favor for the purple dinosaur and infact think that he doesn't make much sense. His universal solution to all mortal problems - just use your imagination! Like using my imagination will help clear the laundry basket - get a life, Barney!

But there I was, sitting on the 2nd row with my kids - waiting anxiously for Barney to come on stage. Because of the price of the tickets, I didn't get an extra one for my maid (live-in assistant), so, it was me and the kids. And I am amazed at how afraid I felt being there all alone with no one to help me chase after one child if they decided to split directions, you know what I mean? With my maid, she could run after one while I give chase after another.

For once in my life, we were actually early for the concert. So, we sat around outside for a while feeding mosquitoes, not realizing that the entrance was the other side!! Blimey, mothers are such duffasses. If daddy was here, he would've noticed that everyone else was walking past us. We sat there for quite a while but we didn't have to fight with anyone for seats considering the fact that we got front row tickets, so, we just mucked around some more in the hallways.

Joshua is so innocent. He was told time and again and he was going to attend a Barney concert and when he saw that one of the Barney videos being shown on a small TV outside the hall, you know, to prep the kids for the concert, with a wave of his hand and asked me, "Ooooohhhh….you mean, this is the Barney concert?" he asked pointing to the TV.

I laughed and shook my head vehemently, and replied that Barney's going to be bigger and better than that. Jared was oblivious to everything except the balloons hanging in the concert hall. Time and time again, the guards would have to usher him away from the rails, the stairs and the balloons. I kept telling him that he was going to see Barney and in his very laid-back manner, he just shrugged his shoulders, "Oh, Barney". And he saunters off cheerfully for the next object of fascination.

We entered the hall cause I figured that the hallway was filling up pretty quickly and lots of kids and parents were just running around too much. Without my extra pair of hands, I needed to get them to a place with walls. So, we got into the concert hall. Thankfully, even when we were sitting so close, the music wasn't too loud. There was space in the front of the concert for the kids to run around in. So, my kids rolled around on the floor, kicked, chased, hopped, jogged and frolicked around very happily while I watched them from my seat. I was guarding the heavy bag that my maid used to carry - with tumblers, breads, biscuits, diapers, clothes…etc all inside.

Then it was time for the Barney concert and the lights were switched off. Thankfully, Joshua didn't fuss cause he had his cousin, Isabelle, there with him. so, they both sat together gleefully to watch. When Barney came on stage. Joshua was sort of like 'Hey! That's a HUGE Barney, huh, mom, huh?". Jared, on the other hand, shriveled up like a prune on my lap, apprehensive about the lights-out thinghy suddenly. But once Barney started warming them up with the kids' favorite songs, Jared was the first one to be out on the space infront of the stage! No kidding, no one was there and he couldn't care less…he had his eyes on Barney when he was singing 'If you're happy and you know it…..'. I think some bemused parents started pointing their fingers at Jared and probably said he was a brave little boy. They don't know that Jared don't realize that there are about 10,000 other people in the same concert hall behind him. well, what he doesn't know can't hurt him.

He got so close to the stage that the guards kept asking him to move back. One silly thing was that, they should just let the kids move around as much as they like, instead of ushering the kids back and forth. They're not allowed too much to the side, or too much to the center of the stage! That's a little ridiculous. If I was in one of my witchy moods, I would have asked the guys to 'chill out' and I paid a certain amount of money to let my kids dance with the stupid dinosaur, so, for crissakes, let the kid dance, ok? But I was happy that both my kids were enjoying the show, so, I let it slide.

Joshua and Isabelle sat in their seats when Barney was talking and then ran up to the stage whenever there was a song, so, I was rolling my legs in and out, in and out, in and out! They were chomping on an insane amount of popcorn too, which I'll just let slide again, just for this time.

I have a feeling that Jared associates 'white men' as 'Hi-5'. Hi-5 is one of his favorite programs right now featuring 5 young people, dancing, singing, and teaching kids things - my husband call them teeny-boopers. But I don't. I kind of like them too, myself. So, when the 'kids' in the Barney show came on stage, he whispered in my ear, "Look, Mamma. Hi-5".

Was the show worth it? Depends on how you look at it. My kids enjoyed it deliriously, so, yes, it was worth the money. For me, I have many complaints about the production of the concert. It's NOTHING like the one they showed on the videos. We were expecting a whole lot more than that - for the price that I was paying, I was hoping for an exact replica of it. But it wasn't to be.

s

Instead of 4 kids, there were only 2. On top of that, they weren't even kids! They were adults who looked a little like kids, that's all. They can sing and dance better than a normal kid would but I think my kids would have enjoyed it more or connected better with the performers if the people were real kids, you know what I mean? The props, don't get me started on this! I have loads of complaints about the props. Gee, when I was in college, we had better props than that when we were producing our own concerts and shows.

And it didn't take us more than a few thousand RINGGIT to produce since they were all handmade. But it was really quite easy to produce. But no sirree, the people in this production didn't make the effort to produce good props. They looked scarce and quite lousy, to tell you the truth. The whole thing just looks...for lack of a better word, CHEAP. Certain things were missing too. For instance, the ducks that was supposed to be flying along with Barney, BJ and Baby Bop when they were in the hot air balloon. They were replaced with kids they plucked out from the audience. Then there was the hot air balloon, there wasn't much effort put into making it look like the balloon was flying. It was flat on the ground - that's it, no smoke effect to make it look like they were in the clouds? Then again, we ARE in a Barney concert and we're all supposed to be using our IMAGINATION!!!

And two of the biggest boo-boos were the robots and the cake. The robot? What robot? The robots weren't even there?! Were we supposed to imagine that too? They still sang the same song and at one point in time said, "Come on, let's dance along with them". I went, "…and that would be dancing along with….what?". And the cake. Instead of the cake that could grow and become bigger and bigger and bigger…they had this cardboard drawing of a cake and when BJ pressed the button, some candles slowly slid up. That's it! That was BJ's big surprise from Professor Tinkerpot. Gee, he's a real miser, huh?

But like I said, none of the kids noticed the difference, only the adults were complaining how cheap the whole production was. And my kids enjoyed it, so, what can I say? For RM600, I bought the space infront of the stage for my kids to dance infront of a real LIVE Barney, I guess.

:: Marsha ::