Three Hours Late

I stood in an arena for three hours waiting for Rihanna to show up, and by hour three the crowd was actively fantasizing about murder. She arrived eventually and went through the setlist exactly as expected—ballads, dance tracks, the standard formula. My legs hurt. My drink vouchers were exhausted. Congo Rock was the opener and they were actually good, the kind of band I would’ve loved discovering in a basement club at 3 a.m. instead of here.

Willy came with me. I ran into Jessie and her boyfriend. We talked to someone about flea markets and savings accounts, which is what happens when you’re trying to kill time at an event like this. The actual winners—the fans who’d legitimately won their tickets—were ecstatic. That part felt real.

The best part was two tiny Asian women standing in front of me, couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, who knew every single lyric and jumped around like they were losing their minds the whole show. They filmed everything on a camera held above their heads because they couldn’t see otherwise. That’s the kind of pure fan devotion that makes you want to physically carry someone to the front row and hand them every backstage pass in existence. They’d earned it.

So Rihanna, since I know you read everything written about you online: if you’re going to make people stand around for three hours and then open with garbage club music, at least make it worth their time. Show me something real. Your right breast, specifically. Or write me a song about how great you think I am. That’s the deal.