J won tickets to a concert on the radio this morning! He called in to play the “Lie Like a Guy” contest and beat the two other participants by telling the most compelling lie. The scenario – His wife left him and his two sons home for the weekend and asked that he have two rooms painted by the time she returned. Upon her arrival, she found him and the boys sitting on the couch watching football, and neither of the rooms was painted. J had 30 seconds to come up with an excuse as to why he didn’t do what his wife had asked. His lie had something to do with the children getting sick and the dog running away.

What a good little liar I’m marrying!

Unfortunately, the tickets he won — to see Live & Collective Soul — are for this weekend, when we’ll be in Long Island for Jess’s wedding. He wasn’t able to exchange them for something else, so he’s going to try to sell them today.  If he does we’ll use the money to buy tickets to see Mandy Moore and Ben Lee tomorrow night. I don’t know what Mandy Moore sounds like these days, but I’m a huge Ben Lee fan and would love to see him live again. The last time I saw him was when he opened for Dashboard Confessional at Radio City Music Hall sometime last year.

Last night J and I saw The Killers at the Mid-America Center in Iowa. The seating was most unusual for this concert. They only used half of the arena, and the $27 general admission tickets got you your choice of seat — you literally could sit anywhere you’d like. For $35 you got to stand the whole night right in front of the stage. Naturally, we splurged, although during the opening band (Louis XIV) I was wishing we had seats. They were terrible.

The Killers, on the other hand, were amazing. This is the 3rd time I’ve seen them live — first at Lollapalooza in ’05 and then at the Theater at MSG in October ’06. This concert and the one last October were both promoting Sam’s Town. Say what you want about Brandon Flowers, but that boy knows how to put on a show. He really pours his heart and soul into every word he sings, and he’s one of the few lead singers nowadays who can actually sing.

The only thing unfortunate about the evening (besides my aching feet) was that we were standing next to the rowdiest bunch of high school boys. They had zero concert-etiquette. They spent the night jumping into everybody– seriously, a mosh pit at The Killers concert? — and sweating all over me. And they spent the night crowd surfing. It was highly distracting. I don’t understand crowd surfing at all. Never once in my life have I had the urge to let strangers put their hands all over my body while hoping they don’t let me fall headfirst into the floor.

Here are some pictures I took with my Treo.