For months my wife has taunted me about one day having to accompany our daughter NJ to Miley Cyrus-style concerts (or whoever the Miley Cyrus equivalent is when NJ is a tween). It’s a chilling prospect: screaming kids, terrible music, huge crowds, endless opportunities to waste money.

We had a dry run recently when “Yo Gabba Gabba Live!” hit town. And while it’s not really the same thing, I have to say that it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t a nightmare or too obnoxious or anything.

I may have even enjoyed myself. I was certainly more animated than NJ.

Now, I’m no stranger to wild concert scenes. I’ve stared up in slack-jawed wonder as the giant Pink Floyd pig floated overhead; watched Bono climb straight up a wall; caught the harmonica the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ front man tossed onto the dance floor; and watched Nick Lowe ogle my college girlfriend for practically the entirety of his two-hour show. Why, Mick Jagger himself once looked and pointed right at me during “Beast of Burden.” Me! Mick Jagger pointed at ME!

Bob Trott

Bob Trott's daughter NJ loves her new Plex doll.

But this was different.

DJ Lance Rock’s image showed up on a big screen on stage, then the real DJ Lance flew through a door in the screen. Soon he was joined by all his Yo Gabba Gabba pals, streamers and confetti filled the air, and the YGG gang engaged in their typical high-energy dance party fervor. Before I knew it, the first set was over and it was intermission time. I’d watched the entire hour, laughing and clapping.

Not the kid, though. NJ sat on her mom’s lap, thumb in mouth and fingers on her other hand twirling her hair. She didn’t take her eyes off the stage, but she didn’t laugh or clap or dance or anything like that. For a moment I wondered if she’d been slipped some bad gummi bears and was tripping pretty hard, too wrapped up pondering what the flashing lights taste like to register a visible reaction.

A friend showed up at our seats during intermission and said her 2-year-old wasn’t into the show either, with the added twists that she cried a lot and demanded her sunglasses because of the bright lights. My friend also had made an interesting observation: “You know you can bring drinks into the theater, right?” I headed to the lobby.

Alas, the line at the bar was too long (longer than the line I stood in to get a parking slip before the show, a line that had me seething like a crazy person). Instead I headed over to the souvenir stand -- partly because I am a long-time concert t-shirt buyer, but mostly because I wanted to see if spending more money could brighten up my child a little. The glo-stick my wife bought her didn’t, nor did the hand-held spinning light thingie I bought her (for myself mainly, though). Finally I headed back to our seats with a Plex (the yellow robot) doll in hand. Plex, you see, is NJ’s FAVORITE. So much so that she has a shortened nickname for him – “Lex.”(OK, that’s accidental.)

NJ grabbed Plex and held him tight, but when the YGGers came out for their second set (which included an appearance by Biz Markie) she went right back to thumb-sucking, hair-twiddling, and staring. An hour later, as the show ended, she mustered a feeble half-wave and we left.

So her chances to seem supremely unimpressed by the whole shebang were then over, right? Wrong! As we walked up the far aisle, eventually we saw that Plex himself was right behind us. Well, I thought, this is it – she’ll go nuts. Nuts, however, she did not go. NJ turned around and glanced at the giant yellow robot, then turned back and stared straight ahead at the exit we were headed toward. No reaction at all.

By now I’m thinking all the expenses – three tickets, parking, souvenirs – would go in the “lessons learned” column of my mental ledger. The kid doesn’t care about this kind of thing, at least not yet.

Again, though – wrong! Once we drove off and started talking to NJ about the show, she bubbled over with excitement. Plex! DJ Lance! Foofa! Dancing! Songs! The kid was in heaven, smiling and gushing for the rest of the afternoon. And hugging her Plex doll – she clung to that guy and would not let go. In fact, he’s been by her side ever since.

The kids around us during the show were pretty well-behaved, and the ones up and dancing and carrying on were older than NJ. So perhaps her behavior wasn’t so unusual, even if it wasn’t what her mom and I expected. It’s my first kid and my first kid show – I don’t even know why I bothered to have expectations in the first place.

Anyway – our friend’s daughter, with the sunglasses? She peed on her father during the second act. So it could have been worse.

Bob Trott blogs about his adventures in parenting at Dad Solo.

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