This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday blog hop. Linda Hill posts a prompt every Friday; see https://lindaghill.com/2020/06/05/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-6-2020/. This week’s prompt: fan. Some people hear, “fan,” and think of a cooling device. Or people with their faces painted in team colors, yelling from a stadium seat while swigging whisky (note: that described most of the adults at my high school’s football games. We teenagers had more dignity). Or maybe you think of fandoms, which has a definitely nerdy connotation: Star Wars fandom, Harry Potter fandom, etc. For me, though, “fan” immediately makes me think of music. Music fandom, especially for women, has a different–and distinctly sexist–connotation that sports or movie or nerdy fandom does not. If I schedule my vacations around my favorite football team’s home games, I’m a fan. If I schedule my vacations around Def Leppard’s tour schedule, I’m a groupie. And “groupie” has a very different connotation from, “fan.” When you paint your face and haul your giant foam finger to a 49ers game, no one thinks you’re planning to bang the quarterback. Even if that quarterback is Joe Montana, and you’re a horny 16-year-old (Not that I’d know anything about that. Nope. Not me.) My sports fan days are mostly behind me, because I have too many hobbies already, and I’m old and cynical enough to be disillusioned by so many aspects of big-time sports. But that’s a rant post for another day. I remain, however, a diehard fan of 80s rock, and I do still take vacation to see Def Leppard when they play nearby (and when I can afford it. $150 a ticket? Seriously, guys? Don’t you have enough money already?) For a couple of hours, I get to feel like a 16-year-old again, dancing and singing along and, yes, looking at the band members. I’m middle-aged, not dead. Concerts are a shared, multi-sensory, visceral experience, a combination of the band, the music, the lights, and–especially–the audience. It’s a chance to be part of a mob that isn’t angry, that’s feeding off each other in a loud, wild, primitive celebration of musical joy. It’s a wild party with 10,000 of your closest friends. Concerts are also a fun photographic challenge. I’m not even good enough to call myself an amateur photographer, but I’ve gotten a few good shots at shows. If you scroll through my albums on Flickr, you’ll find some decent concert shots. Here are a few of my favorites: What are some of your fandoms, dear reader?