Mr.Wonderful in Moline

>Moline, Moline, Moline, Moline!

(can you hear Dolly singing that?)

My friend Joan and I drove home from Des Moines Sunday morning. After I dropped her off I stopped briefly at our empty house (the rest of the brood is off visiting hubby’s family), pulled the dirty clothes out of my suitcase, put some clean clothes in, and then off to Moline to meet my sister Judi. I’m feeling the effects of a 3 day KURT, but loving it. How in the heck does Keith do it??

Judi and I met at a Moline mall, bargain shopped a little, then split two entrees at a Mexican restaurant before heading to the arena. The weather was gorgeous so we decided to take the riverwalk from our hotel to iWireless – really pretty but very breezy yesterday. Another plus of this arena (a nice smaller venue) – it is one of the few I have been to where we could walk to our floor level seats from the ground floor (my old knees hate those long arena stairways) and they also have restrooms on that level. Thanks Monkeyville for the dead center seats about 12 rows in front of Keith’s catwalk microphone!! Unfortunately, being dead center I didn’t feel like I should try to slip past all the others in my row during Taylor’s performance (I know how those continually going out of the row for beer bug me). That was a mistake!! For some reason the crowds in the halls and lines at the restrooms during the break were the worst that I have ever seen at the I Wireless or any other arena for that matter. I waited the entire break and, in fact, missed most of Hit the Ground!!!

Keith was in burgundy plaid with the sparkly metallic thread running through it and looked positively jubilant tonight. He was showing quite a bit of chest J (even before the fans had a chance to try to rip off his shirt while he strolled the aisles like they almost did last evening!). He seemed especially happy and energetic (grinning so much you just couldn’t help but grin right back) and his voice was in fine form even though it was the third concert in three days. He was playful too, using one of his deep ‘silly voices’ during Blacktop (see first videoclip) and including little jokes throughout the night (see below).

Oh that beautiful face during Better Half (love when he wrinkles his nose in the second clip below)!! He had us wrapped around his little finger all night.

Tonight on the small stage Keith had a new ending to Once in a Lifetime, omitting the “Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo’s” and instead adding a deeper, slower extra “We’ve got a once in a lifetime lo-oo-ove!”, so maybe he is protecting his voice a bit. As he settled down on his stool to sing Making Memories of Us he said “A lot of songs are written about getting revenge on your ex-lovers, so it will give them hell the next time you see them. This is NOT one of those songs!” (giggle) (is that a little bit of a dig?) During the lovely Only You Can Love Me This Way he really loudly shouted “You know its true baby girl!” making me wonder whether Nicole might be there somewhere this evening.

When Keith strolled out, strumming his guitar for the start of Raining on Sunday, he totally cracked up the audience by instead singing, straight-faced, Taylor’s opening line from Love Story “We were both young when I first saw you”!! (see third clip below)

Til Summer Comes Around was magnificent as usual! Keith gives so much of himself in that gut-wrenching guitar solo and last night and tonight he punctuated the ending with four very longing, mournful, emotional “I miss you babe”!’s Wonder if missing his own babes helps to fuel the passion in that song?

Keith has brought back his “Space, space space” echo at the start of I Told You So and again added a few bars of a melodic deep “Whoa ah –oh – ah – oh –ah – oh” before the final “Should a known better than to leave me darlin’” (see videoclip below). He hasn’t always done that, has he?

For the first time this evening either I was in just the right spot, or the lighting guy was right on target, or both, because I finally saw the effect that Keith hoped to achieve with his broken mirror front guitar. The light struck all those little mirror pieces and fractured into a hundred different beams shooting out in all directions towards the audience. Very neat! I guess I just wasn’t in the right spot to see that prismatic reflection before.

Keith delighted us with lots of guitar “play” before You Look Good in My Shirt on his ‘light up guitar’ (see clip below). We saw not only its rainbow of colors but also its flashing or blinking mode. He again had a great time in the risers during this song, again successfully leading the audience in song from his perch (listen to them join in in videoclip below) (and admire that booty!). He is having a much easier time now that they have a tiny stage or table for him to stand on while he is up in the audience. I guess one reason the guitar giveaway happens off stage before the show this tour is that he plays one of his special guitars during this number.

I get a kick out of Brad and Brian taking a running leap and sliding down one of the stage ramps (I think its at the end of Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me)! Really tickles those lining the runway too!

Just under two hours into Keith’s performance a particularly soulful Tonight I Wanna Cry during the encore had the whole audience still singing along (listen to the clip below). And they were all with him during the final Better Life too!! He later thanked the audience and said he loved us for staying to the very end (in Milwaukee some started exiting early). We’ll stick around all night long Keith!! Thank you for another wonderful evening!! Enjoy your eight days off – we’ll be missing you!!

(videoclips added shortly)