Kenny Chesney Goin' 'Coastal" on the Des Moines River

I was surprised when Iowa was one of the very first stops on Kenny Chesney's Goin' Coastal Tour and was happy that it would occur before Keith's tour began. I had hoped my youngest daughter might be available to go with me, but things were hectic at school for her so I ended up buying a single ticket. I lucked out with a seat in the risers close to the stage (but 20 rows up) and was pleased to be seeing Kenny in an arena rather than a huge football stadium.

The show was on a Thursday night so I had to head to Des Moines after my last class and arrived about an hour before showtime. I had not even heard who would be opening the show but, what the hey, I was ready for a good time evening of sing along and island rhythms. Although it was officially spring, Des Moines was nippy with the temperatures hovering around freezing.

Although, in retrospect, I should have guessed, I didn't initially recognize the opening group. It took a couple songs before I realized that it was Uncle Kracker - he looked younger and in somewhat better shape than the last time I saw him closing Kenny's show two years ago. I wish he didn't crouch over as he sings every song, but have to admit I really enjoyed his performance of Drift Away. He and his band were on stage for about 30 minutes before they made way for Billy Currington.

Billy, being a curly head cutie with a number of popular hits, always seems to do well with the audience. I enjoy his music, but I must say there have never been any surprises or any really moving moments in the 4 or 5 times I have seen him perform. He is enjoyable, but may always be an opening act. Here is a bit of his ballad Let Me Down Easy and also his song that much of the usual audience can relate to - Pretty Good at Drinkin'Beer. Billy played for about 40-45 minutes and then it was time for Kenny.

After Billy's band's equipment was rolled away, a rectangular canvas-looking curtain decorated with Kenny's typical island beach motif was lowered to hide the stage. During this arena tour Kenny has a catwalk going out perhaps a third of the length of the arena and a crosswalk going off to the right and left about halfway down the length of the catwalk. I didn't see any signs that Kenny might "fly" into the stadium like last tour or do a surprise entry at the middle of the arena like the tour before that, so I was guessing we would first see him on stage when when the curtain was raised. As has been his habit in the past, Kenny's appearance was preceded with a little video of him and his island friends and Kenny greeting and thanking the audience for coming.

Since Kenny has a new album out, I wasn't sure how much of the setlist would be from "Go Coastal". Although I had downloaded the album, I hadn't had the chance to listen to much of it and Itunes would not let me burn a disk to take in the car with me (what is with that Itunes??!!), so I was a little worried he'd be singing mostly music I didn't know. That worry was unfounded though - although he performed about 4 songs from the new album (here is the namesake Go Coastal), most of the concert was made up of old familiar favorites (like my favorite Anything But Mine). And, in fact, if you can believe his comments to the audience, Kenny kept deviating from his setlist to include even more old favorites like Old Blue Chair. It was a pretty mellow evening all in all with lots of singing and swaying. Here's a bit of No Shoes, No Shirt. I think Kenny is moving a little more slowly than he used to (aren't we all?)but he still made very good use of all ends of the catwalk and crosswalks. He perhaps spent a little more time walking in the center of the catwalk (out of fans' reach), than I recall. Late in the show he brought Uncle Kracker back out for When the Sun Goes Down, and then brought Billy out for She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy. A good time was had by all and a satisfied audience held onto the warmth of the show as they went out into the not-quite-beach-like (ha!) Iowa weather.

I stayed in Des Moines overnight and woke to find 2 inches of fresh snow on my car! Drivers must have already packed away their winter driving skills because northbound Interstate 35 was at a standstill for about a half hour because 3 or 4 vehicles rear-ended one another on the snow-slick highway. Luckily I still made it back home for my Friday classes but wondering when the sunny warmth Kenny had teased us with will finally make it to our Iowa 'coasts'!

James Taylor and Ben Taylor in Davenport, IA

Last spring I so enjoyed James Taylor's and Carole King's Troubadour Reunion - such wonderful music and so many warm memories! A few months ago I saw that Taylor would be performing in Iowa, in the Quad Cities, in a small historic theatre akin to the Fox Theatre venues. I decided that seeing him in such an intimate venue was something I'd like to do. To top it off, the show was conveniently scheduled for the Friday night beginning my Spring Break from school - a perfect time for a little roadtrip.

Davenport, IA is about 2.5 hours away. When I headed out after my last class campus was already deserted - everyone was anxious to begin their spring break! I had been craving Thai food so had googled Quad City restaurants and picked a place called Exotic Thai in Moline to enter into my GPS. It was perfect! I had such a delicious and interesting dinner. Picking an appetizer I had never heard of and a chicken coconut curry from their extensive menu I ate every little bit! It was so good that I decided a visit to a second Exotic Thai in Davenport would be necessary for lunch the next day! : )

My seat at the Adler Theatre was in row H of the main floor. Although it wasn't truly the 8th row (there seemed to be some extra "pit" rows) it was still a darn good seat. Taylor is touring with his son Ben so I wasn't sure what to expect. Ben is talented, good looking and has a great sense of humor, so he brought a lot to the evening. The setlist included quite a few of Ben's songs - all enjoyable and mostly of a distinctly different 'flavor' than those of his father (mix in a little soft adult contemporary a la Jack Johnson). Here is Ben having fun with his song "Your Boyfriend is a Really Nice Guy". Some songs they sang as duets, while on others one or the other would primarily provide guitar accompaniment. Of course new, unfamiliar music doesn't produce quite the same warm, comfortable feelings of old favorites but Ben's selections did spark an interest in taking a look at his upcoming album. Ben and James sat far enough apart that I often had a hard time capturing both father and son (between

audience heads) in my videoclips. Here is a bit of Carolina On My Mind

A bit of Don't Want to be Lonely

Angry Blues

Sweet Baby James

The show was a very chatty and personal offering - almost as if we were sitting in their living room listening to stories and jokes between songs. Ben and James seem to have a wonderful relationship. At one point James got up and nuzzled the side of Ben's head and neck with his balding pate - he is a proud and affectionate father! The Davenport crowd was quite interactive - shouting out Happy Birthdays to James almost as soon as he and Ben came out on stage and then the whole audience broke out into a verse of happy birthday to James.

Houston Rodeo 2011- A Great Keith Urban Hors D'oeuvres!

HOUSTON!! It is overcast and occasionally drizzly, but it is so nice to be walking around in shirt sleeves after a very long Iowa winter (which is not yet over back in Iowa)! I made it to my hotel (although it took over an hour to check in because of the rodeo crowd), then took the hotel shuttle over to my favorite seafood place close to the arena (Capt’n Benny’s) for some of my beloved raw oysters on the half-shell. Yum! Then I walked towards Reliant Stadium (umbrella up), catching a little parking lot shuttle about halfway there to speed the trip. I’m getting to be an old-hand at the Reliant, so found my seat without any problem. Not bad at all as far as stadium seats go! I had a good view of center arena and also a good view of the bronco-riding/bull-riding chutes (which I have never been close to before).

Before rodeo time the Reliant entertained us with excellent videoclips from last year’s shows (Gary Allen, Lady A, Rascal Flatts, Martina). The rodeo activities began about 6:30 with a bit of show and ceremony before the actual competitions. First we got to see several dozen horses and riders mosey round the floor, then many horse-drawn wagons of local organizations and famous locals (I suppose) waving to us, then a grand rendition of the Star Spangled Banner and loud and flashy INDOOR fireworks and explosive noises. I could feel the heat of the fireworks and jumped every time they set off one of the loud soundbombs! Those Texans are gutsy - don’t know how they do indoor fireworks every night of the rodeo without setting someone on fire!!

I have really become fond of the rodeo itself. It is so fast-spaced and exciting (nothing like the rodeo shows that come up north) that the 2.5 hours fly by. These guys are competing for large purses so put life and limb at risk. Cute cowboys too! : )

Before the final two rodeo events they bring out the stage pieces and begin setting up behind temporary screen walls so the horses won’t be distracted by the center arena ‘construction’. I noticed right away that the band (but not Keith) came out on the stage pieces. The very last rodeo item on the program is 5 year old boys and girls sheep-busting (trying to stay on the back of a wooly sheep as it gallops out into the arena. What a hoot that is!

The impressively quick crew finished setting up the stage and removing the temporary walls. The chute seat folks are allowed to come out on their patch of dirt (still substantially away from the stage), and the stadium warns us the lights are about to go out : ) That means Keith is on his way! (and in fact in the shadows I see the vehicle drive up to let him get out). The lights come up and with little intro he and the band jump into a rousing performance of Put You in a Song. Keith is in a golden brown version of his short-sleeved plaid shirts that shows off his golden blond/brown hair nicely (shiny but a bit wild tonight since humid Houston is definitely a “bad hair” type of place!). Keith is full of energy and on the move every minute. Even though the stage constantly rotates that’s not enough for him - he frequently walks around the edges to the other side of his rotating platform!

Then he throws us a curve and they break into “You Look Good in My Shirt”! Certainly he won’t come off stage in the second song of the night?? (YLGIMS was last year’s crazy-go-into-the-stands song). No, he did not - they sang it straight through, leaving us to wonder if there would be an “off-stage” song and what it might be. Next up was stupendous Stupid Boy and hearing that guitar solo live provided another essential component of my “fix” after a long winter Keith “withdrawal”!

After SB Keith paused to greet us all. “Good evening Houston! I just want to say it is hard to follow mutton busting (LOL) - I so want to get my daughter into that when she turns 5!” (wonder what Nic would think of that?) “It is very nice to be back - I think this is our 4th time playing the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo - thank you so much. Do we feel like singing tonight??” (We do!!)

Sweet Thing followed with the stadium chiming in (although stadiums never sound as good as arena crowds singing with Keith). Looks like Keith is going to continue a trend he started last summer: doing some great guitar improvisation at the end of Sweet Thing. He also did his first ‘echo round’ of the evening, beginning with the usual “Sing yeah-yeah-yeah!” (twice) and telling us “I love you Houston” when we responded immediately. We were treated to some guitar riffs accompanied by a Keith crazy slinking walk/dance across the stage (a new move I have never seen before!!) which I caught on tape. (He seemed to be in a very happy, dancing mood, so several times during the show he was puttin’ on the moves!)Then Keith introduced some new echos for this season (you will probably have to hear the first one to make sense of it)

Let me sing nu na nu na nu (in descending notes, repeated a few times)

Then from Keith: “The stars at night are big and bright”

Soliciting “Deep in the heart of Texas” from the audience

Then an echo of each line:

I want you to want me

I need you to need me

I love you to love me

And after our last echo Keith says “That’s for sure!” (I love his little messages to his fans!) And then “You sound so good tonight Houston!” before he went on a glorious guitar improvisation. Really fun!!

With a “Hit it Brian” on they went to Better Life. Towards the end Keith yelled something which got lost in the stadium echos, but also gave us a little yodel! : ) More yeah-yeah-yeahs and some more comments on our good singing and a fiery guitar finish to the song and “You guys are really singing good tonight! It sounds really great up here!”

Keith pulled out a stool for his acoustic songs and actually read a sign. I couldn’t see it and he wasn’t facing the chute seat people on the stadium floor at the time so It must have been in the stands to the right of me. I’m not really clear on what he was reading but he seemed to read “ I’m writing on this sign and looking at the good people of Houston. I love you sign.” Maybe someone else caught it more accurately. Then he introduced Without You as “A song for my girls” (Sigh). He ended the song with “Even this rodeo won’t mean a thing without you.” : ) I had just set down my camera and was kind of doing an “Aw, wasn’t that great?” when Keith shocked us by singing a very special and heartfelt rendition of You Were Always On My Mind and I had to scramble for my camera again. I was just thrilled and enthralled - so beautiful Keith! He did some exquisite almost Spanish flamenco like guitar fingering - it was amazing to watch his fingers fly across those frets in a new and different way! Wow! Making Memories rounded out his trio of acoustic songs. Several times during the show Keith threw a “mama” into the lyrics. That and the dedication of Without You made me wonder if Nic or even the whole family might be present. Sunday would probably enjoy the ponies and the sheep.

Time to rouse up the audience again with Kiss a Girl, followed by band introductions and a little guitar jousting with Jerry to introduce Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me.

Towards the end of WWWBM all of a sudden Keith came down off the stage (Ah Hah!!) and began to make his way around the edges of the floor, slapping hands with thrilled fans in the stands. Tonight he went with just a portable microphone rather than his guitar. I rushed down the aisle closest to me so I could peek out the railings at his progress (and hoping, of course, that he would make it down to me). He was going counter clockwise around the arena and when he got down to the chute end he climbed up into the stands causing the usual excited stir, For some reason tonight (maybe because he was just kind of scatting into the mic at that point in his walk, not singing a refrain like he would be if it were YLGIMS) he began asking the names of the fans that were gathered around him. (I prefer a “singing” journey, but perhaps he knew that Reliant Stadium is so big that it is hard to sustain the singing during the gallop around. He said several things during his trip, some of which I couldn’t catch, but some like “Texas is friendly!” as he was being grabbed. Keith then ran across a section of seats and then ventured even farther up into the stands before returning to the stadium floor. He delved into the “Chute Seats” crowd on the floor in front of me, but never made it over to the railing of section 109 where I was. Too bad: ( But you know he thrilled many with his adventure!

Back on stage it was time for Somebody Like You which made me happy (because I love that song) and sad at the same time (because I knew it was the beginning of the end). I think Keith was pleased as punch to be back on stage after his five month break from touring. And we were really happy he was back on stage! He thanked Houston, all those who traveled a long way and everyone who sat in traffic to get there. He began the Day-o, Day-ay-ay-o round but then switched to another round of Deep in the Heart of Texas. We got a backbend and hopping in 4 circles at the end of SLY. A big flat bed truck pulled up to stage and all the guys piled into the back, waving to the audience as it carried them out of the stadium.

AND SO IT BEGINS! This was just a taste, a peek, a preview, a Keith hors d’oeuvres of what’s to come in the months ahead!

Off to Houston to See Keith!

When the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show finally released its full entertainment lineup I was so disappointed to see that Keith had broken his pattern of performing on or close to St. Pat's Day and was instead scheduled to perform on March 8 - a date, alas, that was a week before my Spring Break : (  The official tour wouldn't begin until 3 months after that - an eternity for the Urban-deprived! I was resigned however and told friends I couldn't attend this year.

But as the days and weeks went by Houston "called" to me, lured me. Thinking "well, I'll just look" I started to check on tickets, a hotel. The brokers and Ebay didn't have any tickets I was interested in. Even though it was quite late for buying tickets, I checked the Houston Rodeo's own box office. Lo and behold I found a 3rd row action seat!! Not center field but not too far to the side. My willpower being as pathetic as it is I bought it and set the planning wheels in motion. I found a room in a walking-distance hotel and a cheap flight. Now I just had to prepare for missing class - not too easy to do during our hectic midterm week. I tried using the university's system for videotaping a lecture. The software was not very cooperative because I am one who doesn't just stand there and lecture - I have links to web examples and lots of little videoclips to make my points - and that seemed to create problems, so I had to do several re-takes for each of my classes.

When I printed my boarding passes at home this morning I had to laugh. Now Delta prints not only your boarding pass, but also the weather and events at your destination. So they were kind enough to let me know that Keith Urban was playing in Houston on March 8!! : ) No kidding! 

Miranda Lambert and Friends at UNI in Iowa

Last week was a big week for Country Music on my campus - 2 country concerts within 3 days at a school where concerts are few and far between. The Band Perry and Thompson Square performed on Thursday night and Miranda Lambert appeared on Saturday!

Miranda's show was scheduled in our basketball arena, seating about 7000. I had purchased a floor seat in a presale and thought I would be sitting in the 11th row. But apparently I did not look at the seating chart properly, or the wrong chart was posted, because I was surprised to see a General Admission area in front of all the rows of seats. So I was actually sitting in what probably would have been about row 21 if the entire floor had been reserved seats. So, a little disappointed, I made my way to my middle of the row seat. I hoped the performers would make good use of the catwalk that was in place so that they would be a little closer to me.  I didn't know then that my seat location was not going to be my main disappointment later in the evening.

Miranda had two openers - Josh Kelley and Justin Moore. I wasn't really familiar with Josh but discovered he had quite a voice and was pretty cute. He sang us a couple song from his new soon-to-be-released album. I especially enjoyed his song about his recently adopted baby daughter Naleigh Moon -  a beautiful and very touching piece. Since I don't keep up with the gossip pages I didn't learn until later that Katherine Heigl was his partner and the mother with babe in arms that he sang sweetly of.

Justin Moore was up next. I had seen Justin play a couple times at last year's CMA Fest and at Country Concert in Ohio, so I was more familiar with his set. Besides his rowdier songs he has a heartfelt song that is a tribute to his grandfather and a great ballad called Outlaws Like Me.

It was a night for mentioning baby daughters. Justin, like Josh, recently became a proud father and shared what a change it had made in his life. To my shock he then appeared on the catwalk with his baby daughter in arms (with her big pink protective headphones on) and sang his entire hit "Small Town USA" holding her, walking from the catwalk to each end of the stage in turn!! I was amazed that she did not freak out in that context but she just gazed at Daddy's face (probably wondering why his lips were moving but she couldn't hear him - lol). Quite a cutie!

Justin includes the end of a rifle barrel as the double "O" in his last name  in his big "Justin Moore" stage backdrop. It also includes, off to one side, "NRA" in big letters. Miranda makes reference to shooting guns both in her songs and as she chats with the audience, and has a microphone stand fashioned out of a rifle. Do you think the NRA provides concert sponsorship just the way that the rum and beer companies do??

Then it was time for Miranda to come on stage! Seats that had been empty during the openers were suddenly filled and there was quite a buzz in the audience. Miranda grabbed the audience right away by starting out with Kerosene. Everyone was on the feet and singing! I sang along loudly but discovered something unfortunate. Now the rows were full and little movement was possible and the couple right in front of me was very tall. I usually don't begrudge the standers who are enjoying the show. But this couple seemed not to pay much attention to the show. They were more interested in standing up and making out. When they did I could not see between them and could not see around them!! So for most of Miranda's set I was stuck just listening, not able to see her, which had me fuming in my seat. Not able to see her or her band, I couldn't really enjoy when they rocked out. There were only a couple songs (when the couple ahead of me took a beer or bathroom break) when I was able to really enjoy Miranda. Happily at least one of these few times was during y favorite The House That Built Me

UNI really sang along sweetly - the stadium rang with our voices. I also saw a bit of Gunpowder and Lead, but overall I "missed" most of her set. : (

Miranda shared a cute picture of she, Blake and their dog during the show and flashed her ring at us while speaking happily about her engagement. She was a little appalled at the cold Iowa weather and said she hoped she'd be back during warm whether when she could enjoy Iowa a little more.