So what are you doing on June 11?

I’ll be at Meriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., watching R.E.M. on tour. The band announced tour dates and the Meriweather show is the closest to me. They classify it as their Washington, D.C., stop, but Columbia is closer to Baltimore. Doesn’t matter to me.

I saw R.E.M. there once before, in 1999 on the Up tour. My nephew and I got lawn seats, but went to the box office before the show to see if anything better was available. We ended up with 10th row seats. Amazing. They also played “Camera” that night, which blew me away.

I had hoped for a date in Vegas or Atalantic City so I could combine gambling with R.E.M. again, but that didn’t happen. Hopefully, they do a second leg and hook me up with that.