Next time I go to a concert, I’m bringing tranquilizers.

I never thought I’d need to resort to such measures, but since Saturday night’s Dave Matthews Band concert in Buffalo, I’ve changed my mind. Tranquilizers will be as necessary as tickets for the next concert I attend. How else will I handle nearby dancers flailing around with no regard for the rhythm of the music?

The offending dancers were actually a 40-year-old couple; a gray-haired, pig-tailed woman and her husband, a short guy with Robert Redford-type blond hair. But it’s not their appearance that freaked me out. It was their ‘dancing.’

It was reminiscent of the “Seinfeld” episode in which Kramer dates Elaine’s roommate. In the episode, Kramer and Elaine’s roomie have sex while listening to African tribal music. Elaine walks in and sees their ridiculous post-sex routine: arms waving, they march through the apartment to the beat of the music. At the end of the episode, they trip over a glass coffee table, sending the roomie to the hospital.

How I wish I could have sent the people at Saturday’s concert to the hospital.

The pair kicked off the show by kicking off their shoes — they danced barefoot throughout the night. Then, they dismantled the chairs they were supposed to sit in, folding them up and putting them on the floor. They got in trouble with the ushers a couple times, first for the chairs, then for leaving their seats to prance up and down the aisle. When they returned to their seats, their dancing occupied a five-seat radius. I was beginning to wonder if they bought out a block of seats to accommodate their movements.

When they weren’t engaging in their Seinfeldesque jungle routine, they practiced two other obnoxious dance forms. First was the literal dancing, acting out song lyrics through motion. I was treated to husband and wife circling their fingers around their ears while Dave sang, ‘You drive me cra-zy.’ Even worse, during “Grace is Gone,” the words ‘You broke my heart / My grace is gone’ inspired the woman to put her hand to her chest and make a ripping motion. She held her heart in hand before her and dropped the torn heart to the ground. Her husband proceeded to do a jungle-dance jig on it.

The second type of dancing was the I’m-playing-an-instrument dance. The husband liked to play the guitar. This act was obnoxious, but not egregiously so. Lots of people play air guitars. Air drums, however, I hadn’t witnessed before. The woman went all Keith Moon on the chairs, smacking the seats in front of her and twisting all the way around to the two chairs she hadn’t dismantled.

To celebrate especially flamboyant gestures, such as the drumming, the couple celebrated with two-handed high fives. They were generous high fivers, often slapping skin with the obviously annoyed people surrounding them.

If the same duo bothers me at either of the concerts I go to in Canada this weekend, I’ll be prepared. When they turn around to slap me five, I’ll slap them with the tranquilizers.

Tito Bottitta is a junior information science and technology major. E-mail him at t1to98@aol.com.

Published on April 14, 2002 at 12:00 pm