My son is 9 years old and loves Wednesday (someone kindly asked him tonight what he loves about them; his response: "I love that they're loud"). We live in Chapel Hill and had to search everywhere for tickets to one of the shows this weekend at the Cradle (we didn't know about the show until after all 3 nights were sold out). We finally ended up with 2 tickets to tonight's show and he was insanely excited for it...and by the end of the night, it couldn't have been a better first concert experience for him. The crowd was incredibly kind and loving, making sure he could see and that he knew how to stay safe (we were up front in vicinity of the mosh pit), and then at the end after the show, it went to another level. One of the people behind us we'd been talking to before the opener yelled up to Ethan that it was my son's first show and he immediately stopped where he was going with the setlist and brought it over to my son. THEN Karly brought him over a bunch of flowers that were on the stage during the show.
He was already buzzing so I bought him a shirt, and then afterwards we went to our car and the band was out back (actually the front if you know the Cradle at all) and I asked him if he wanted to meet them. He had a huge grin and said "definitely," and then he went to hug all the members of the band and they all volunteered to sign his setlist. First, he went up to Spider, then Xandy, then Spider brought it over to Karly to sign and she told my son she noticed and remembered him from the crowd. Their friends and family were literally cheering when I told them it was his first show. It was so wholesome and literally a dream first concert experience, so I had to share on here how amazing the band is as a band and also as people. I've never seen my son so happy and he will definitely remember it for decades (and I will too!).
PS--If you were one of the beautiful people looking out for us in the crowd tonight (there were many), cheers to y'all!