Radiohead

Roy and I went to see Radiohead last night. In short, it was an incredible show. But, there's a great story from the night that should be told. (This will a little longer than most of my posts...if you're into the quick version, check Roy's blog)

About a week ago, I bought two tickets via a third party internet site, for Roy and I to go to the show. Radiohead is one of Roy's favorite bands, and it worked out to be a birthday present for him. So, I get the tickets in the mail Monday. There are four sheets of paper in the envelope I received, and two of the sheets are the tickets (this will become important very soon).

Fast forward to last night. I grab two sheets of paper from my cluttered dresser right before we're heading out. The top copy is definitely a ticket and I see that I'm holding two sheets of paper, so the other must be the ticket (nope). I'm not really sure why I didn't take the extra half second effort to indeed confirm it was the ticket...I just didn't.

Roy asks me in the car, "Do you have the tickets?" And of course I reply confidently that I do. After getting down there, parking, and getting about 50 feet from the gate, I pull out my two sheets of paper...and my heart sank. The second sheet of paper was merely a receipt of some kind that does us NO good. I begin thinking I have absolutely ruined our night, just becuase I wasn't a little more careful. It was not a fun feeling. After standing there for about five minutes completely bewildered that I could have been so careless as to not double check myself, we moved toward the box office to see what our options were.

After confirming with a lady at the ticket window that she couldn't track my order that I had actually purchased two tickets, Roy and I stood there and contemplated our options. It looked like Iron Man was going to be our evening activity. And I remember praying and asking God to help me not freak out and just trust His sovereignty in this situation. And sure enough, one of the next voices I hear is from the ticket window: "...ever since this morning I haven't really wanted to go...could you just mark that I picked it up and just give it away to someone..." Roy and I looked at each other, and five minutes later we had the ticket! Thank you ticket lady, wherever you are.

My ticket was maybe 40-50 rows back on the very right side. It turns out that Roy's new ticket is dead center, maybe 15 rows back! And because there were a bunch of empty seats around him, five songs into the show, we were both rockin' out not 30 yards from Thom Yorke himself. The lights were great, the music was fun, and Thom was very querky. Even the people around us were really nice. One nice young gentlemen offered us some weed : )...to which we politely declined.

The phrase of the evening was "Happy Providence." If I had never have left the extra ticket on my dresser, we would have had mediocre seats and would have been without a cool story. Instead, we got to see God at work in the most random of ways, and allow us to have incredible seats to an incredible show. I don't think it was accident at all that I prayed yesterday that I would be able to worship God in the midst of a Radiohead show. He is in control of every dice that's rolled and every single atom floating around and every situation going on in our lives. And He showed me that last night. He didn't have to. He still would have been sovereign. But He chose to, and I was able to worship Him for His sovereignty. I thank Him for this bit of happy providence.

Anyway, here are some pics: