After my last class on Friday I hightailed it to the airport to catch my westbound flight to Seattle. Hubby was off at another business meeting, but his travel is sometimes a blessing- because of his frequent flyer miles my flight was free! Since all my daughters were also away (at school) I was extra happy to have a KURT scheduled rather than being lonesome at home. I wish I could have managed to get to Friday night’s Portland show, but the airline schedules wouldn’t allow it, But the Seattle region is a great place to visit so I knew that I would have more than enough to do during my time there. For the first time that I remember my flight actually arrived a half hour early! (Will wonders never cease!) Got my cheap little rental car and the first order of business was finding some of that great Pacific seafood for dinner. I picked a spot in suburban Seattle (a community called Des Moines, oddly enough) and depended on my “Never Lost” GPS to guide me there. (BTW - that’s a bit of a misnomer - I have been lost with my Never Lost many times, but at least it helps me “find” my way eventually ; )). To my delight the “Salty’s” restaurant I picked turned out to be at the water’s edge and a beautiful sunset was in progress for my entertainment. “Red skies at night” foretold the next day’s delights. After raw oysters, Dungeness crab chowder and fresh Alaskan cod I was content and ready to go the last 16 miles to Tacoma.
The Best Western Tacoma Dome was almost on top of Saturday night’s venue. Since the guys were playing Portland Friday evening, the Dome was dark and quiet when I arrived and the tour bus parking lot visible from the hotel’s glass elevators was empty. But by dawn (I was on Midwestern time) the lot was chock-full - the boys were back in town!!
Tacoma’s show was scheduled a little later than usual - 8 PM - so I could spend the sunny warm day seeing the sights. A Seattle resident I sat next to on the plane had strongly recommended taking a ferry across Puget Sound, which sounded great to me. I had actually planned on parking my car and just riding the ferry to and from Bainbridge Island, but after following the street signs pointing to the ferry dock, I found myself sort of trapped in the line of cars loading onto the ferry, So my rental car got to take the trip as well! With it parked on the lower deck, I went up to the sundeck to enjoy the glorious picture postcard views of the Seattle skyline as we pulled out of port, and later the picturesque shores of the island. We also could see majestic Mount Hood off the port side (hope I got my direction right). Since I ended up traveling with my vehicle I only ferried one-way, then took the one bridge off the opposite side of the island to explore the Bremerton region. I found a delightful brewery in Silverdale and had a late alfresco lunch of Porter and mustard glazed wild salmon, raspberry walnut salad, and one of their specially brewed Bavarian style wheat beers. Life was good! I had planned to stop at the zoo too, but decided a nap sounded good since Keith would be playing from about 11 PM to 1 AM according to my Midwestern set internal clock!
I had checked out the local country stations and knew that 2 would be having pre-parties next to the Dome and giving away ticket upgrades and backstage passes. KMPS was also nice enough to set up a table with markers and small poster boards so anyone could make a concert sign. No reason to pass by any chances to get lucky - so I signed up at both booths, made a poster, and lingered outside the Dome until all the prizes had been awarded. My Keith-Karma was just a wee bit off tonight - the gal just 2 raffle tickets ahead of me at KMPS’s drawing won backstage passes to meet Keith!! Gosh - if I had just walked a tiny bit faster to their booth.......
I guess Keith does not have quite as strong a following in the Northwest, or maybe 3 fairly close shows (Portland, Tacoma, Spokane) was a bit too much for this area, because this is the first arena that I have been to that totally did not use their upper level seats. In fact they had the second level seats covered with black tarps so that you couldn’t see the empty chairs. I guess that means the fans present were all in better, lower level risers, but it still surprised me to see all that un-used capacity. I haven’t heard what the crowd was like in Portland.
Tacoma had the small stage located about 2/3’s back on the floor with a large fenced in area of what I presume was “General Admission” beyond it. It appeared that the fans standing there wore special wristbands, so it didn’t look promising for others on the floor getting close to the back stage.
It was a treat to have Little BIg Town opening for Keith. I always thoroughly enjoy them, although I must confess that I’m not familiar with their most recent music. And, unfortunately, it seemed that they got a rather lukewarm response from the audience. Seats were only half full when they began their set and they weren’t able to get the crowd on their feet and singing until their final, always popular Boondocks song. They thanked Keith for having them out on tour with him and told us that they would be out in the audience just like us watching his awesome show.
Tonight Keith was in brown on white plaid and grayish jeans, with his hair just as flippable as can be. And boy he gave us a lot of that ol’ time flippage tonight!! : )
Another thing a bit different about the Tacoma Dome venue - although Keith made his usual statement to the audience about “This is your night,,,sing, dance, stand on your chair,..” etc. and told Security to let the audience be, the Dome Security stayed pretty much in full force all night and were still chasing folks in the aisles back to their seats during the encore songs! I had an seat in row 16 on the left hand center aisle,so I could actually see better when they kept things clear, but their toughness was quite a contrast to some of the ‘looser’ venues.
Once that curtain dropped and Keith emerged rocking Hit the Ground everyone was up on their feet and loudly welcoming him and the band. Keith looked happy to be there and after “So if you gotta go baby I won’t stop you, and I won’t hang around and miss you” he let out a big “I’ll tell you why!!” before the punchline of the song (see clip).
Brian is growing a beard! It is past the scruff stage and pretty long in places. I think I will miss his baby face - he has a bit of a Jesus look now!
Keith’s Stupid Boy guitar solo was just stupendous. Although I love to watch him play all of his solos, SB is my personal favorite. I was ticked when some guy walked right in front of me just before it ended, but I caught most of it.
Then it was time for Better Half. I was debating whether or not to try to go back to the small stage since it looked so sturdily fenced in. As a result I only have a tiny clip of BH but put it up anyway because I love the “tap his chest for emphasis” gesture and grin and his little head waggle. The audience is really singing along but my camera is facing Keith, not the crowd, so it doesn’t pick up some of the audience participation (altho a little bit later I was wishing it would pick up even less when the gals around me were screaming, rather than singing, the lyrics!). I finally decided - what the heck- and headed back to the rear stage. Oodles of security (8-10) were hanging around that fenced area, warily watching the crowd, so I stayed off to the right side (where Keith would be approaching) hoping none of the guards would march me back to my seat. As Keith got close the crowd went crazy as usual and security had to open the fence to allow the star to enter. Well apparently where I standing was right in the way of Keith and his accompanying security, and his “frontman” pushed me right into the stage enclosure to make a path for Keith!! So I was “in” and just a couple people away from the stage, Then a huge crowd of women surged in, screaming at the top of their lungs, and creating a crazy swaying mass of bodies pressed tightly together. And some of these gals were serious about trying to get as close as possible - it was the first time I wondered whether it might come to fistacuffs. One right in front of me asked me why I was pushing her, but I was just a bit of flotsam being moved by the waves of people behind me! The floor there was covered with a slippery puddle of beer making it even more challenging. Even Keith commented on the crazy crowd at his feet. I can survive the crowding, but it makes me mad when they then drown out Keith not with singing but screaming and random loud conversations (see clip). One woman gave Keith the largest white rose I have ever seen. Nice idea but Keith unfortunately put it on his microphone stand. The bloom was so big it almost entirely hid Keith’s face while he sang Making Memories! : ( (Ladies - rosebuds only in the future please!) He dedicated MMOU to Nic but I didn’t catch sight of her if she was there.
Back on the mainstage Keith really hammed it up during Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me, flipping his hair wildly this way and that, tossing picks right and left off his mic stand, and and exaggerating his body movements as he moved across the stage. i believe someone upfront tossed a pair of panties at him (ignored), Of course Keith changed the lyrics to “She’s singing a Little Big Town song to me - “It’s a Real Fine Line””. As I filmed Sweet Thing someone right in front of the catwalk kept waving a rolled up poster - I wondered if she might bop Keith with it to get his attention!
Keith not only introduced the band members but praised their “superb talents”.
As he brought out Jerry Keith reminisced about how The Ranch played this very Dome back in 1997, opening for Sawyer Brown!
And who was that somewhat familiar woman who came up to me while I was filming Keith and knowingly asked whether it would be on YouTube tomorrow?
Although Tacoma got a little rhythmical foreplay before Raining on Sunday, Keith didn’t improvise a song. He totally shredded that guitar during the climactic ROS ending!! Right after ROS Keith and one of his stagehands came out - Keith with a big tennis racket and the stagehand with 3 yellow balls. He handed the balls one at a time to Keith who made a show of signing the ball and then lobbing it way to the back of the arena. They repeated the process for the remaining balls and the audience was loving it. I didn’t catch any balls but I did catch Keith’s last serve on film!
Keith followed that fun with the announcement that they were going to change things up tonight because he so enjoyed being on the road with Little Big Town and wanted to bring them out so they could all do a number together (loud cheering from the audience). They sounded just wonderful together on Seven Bridges Road!! I had a tough time trying to keep all 5 of them in my camera shots between heads, but got a reasonably good recording. I was tickled when, as LBT left the stage, Keith yelled out “Let’s give a big round of applause for Little Big Town Y’ALL! ” “y’all” - so cute.
It happened so fast and I wasn’t prepared for Keith’s little Elvis impersonation - using a deep Elvis voice and an extra “baby” in one line of I Told You So. Keith’s camera crew WAS ready though - so we got to see Keith lifting the left side of his upper lip into a perfect Elvis smirk on the video walls!
Shoot! Too many things to capture on video - I was out of memory on the Panasonic by midway through You’ll Think of Me! Woe is me.
Keith turned to the right side to go out in the crowd during You Look Good in My Shirt. I was hoping for just that and had walked over to that aisle, hoping it would be the “side of the night”. Got my strokes in both as he went out to the risers and as he returned. I’m sure the screaming audience drowned out my appreciative but soft “Love you Mr. Urban” as he went back to stage. Once on stage he headed to the catwalk and played the closing of YLGIMS laying flat on his back on the catwalk!! Remember when he and Chris R. pretty routinely played on their backs during shows?? He was definitely giving his all last night.
Speaking of giving his all, I thought he was getting a little bit hoarse by night’s end. Tacoma was the third show in a row, with Spokane yet to go. Protect that honeyed voice of yours Keith! He was gracious as always with his thank yous and a lot of the crew came out throwing picks and having fun (Keith said their antics get crazier each night), There was an exceptional amount of hand-shaking and slapping this evening - Keith seemed deeply grateful.
Although I’m not usually one to go to the buses, in this case I had to pass the lot to get to my hotel. I waited (with about 15 others) a short while at the driveway, hoping we might get a wave from Keith as his bus pulled out. Well we saw it pull away - but not down our driveway. There must have been a second exit on the opposite side of the lot. So Keith was on the road to Spokane before I could even cross the street to my hotel.
Thanks for the great memories Keith!
PS Maybe the Tacoma Dome security was tough because they get lots of rowdy crowds there. The Tacoma Dome Best Western Hotel is the only hotel I have ever been to that made us get our hands stamped before we went out and we had to show that stamp to get back in the hotel. They had guards posted at the entrances and in the elevators, and made sure no more than 7 passengers got on an elevator at a time!
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