The Thrills of Dallas No Frills

Keith did 6 private small venue “No Frills” concerts this month to promote his upcoming new album and tour. Tickets were only available to those who won them from the fan club, the radio stations near the 6 venues or contests sponsored by Verizon. I entered and entered and downloaded Verizon music and ringtones (a way to qualify for their competitions) but no luck :(. Days before I left for the Houston Rodeo show I saw a pair of tickets for the Dallas No Frills show listed on Ebay. The Dallas show was the day after the Houston rodeo and just a few hours drive away. How could I resist?? I watched that Ebay item, expecting it to be bid up to a high price, but I guess I was the only one watching it because as its time ran out I placed the lowest opening bid and won the auction! Of course it meant paying a penalty to change my return flight but I was thrilled to death. Who knows if I will ever again get the chance to see Keith Urban in a small club setting ??

I was relieved when the envelope containing my Dallas House of Blues No Frills tickets actually arrived at my Houston hotel. Wednesday afternoon I had an uneventful drive from Houston to Dallas, caught sight of the parked Keith Urban-Verizon bus when I filled up my gas tank and found my rather seedy hotel. it was a bad sign when there were no bulbs in any of the lamps and no lamp shades on two of them, but who would think one would have to worry about something listed as a Hampton Inn?

I made contact with Kathy, another ardent fan who was going to use my extra ticket. She and her hubby offered to pick me up at my hotel so Kathy and I could catch an early dinner at the House of Blues restaurant. What fun to meet a new online friend and find you have so much in common! We managed to stop talking long enough to eat our sandwiches, then used our receipts to get into the restaurant’s “Pass the Line” waiting area which would allow us to be admitted to the venue before the folks in the outside line! There were quite a few who took advantage of this option and we had about a half hour wait before the doors opened at 8:00, but it was definitely worth it, We made some new friends in line - lucky Monkeyville winners and another pair who had simply lucked out by arriving at the HOB box office before 6 and were handed a pair of tickets! While in line verizon folks shot small group photos of “Keith’s fans waiting in line” and then showed some of these on the screens inside while we waited for it to be showtime (9:00). Verizon also had their other promotions from last tour active - text messages flashed on the venue screens (“Linda came from Iowa!”), the opportunity to do a green screen video “with Keith” was advertised, encouragement to use our phones to video Keith singing Sweet Thing and then submit the videos to be included in a video collage which perhaps they will use in the tour, info on downloading music and ringtones, a chance to win a guitar signed by Keith. It helped to pass the time as we impatiently waited for the man we so wanted to see.

I forgot to mention that after they checked our IDs and tickets and let us into the venue, Kathy and I temporarily parted ways. She was determined to score a spot upfront on the floor (and did so!!) while I knew from experience that, since my knee surgery, I could not stand continuously for long periods of time. I asked whether I could sit in the venue seats (upstairs) and the fellow graciously took me up in an elevator and pointed out the only places I couldn’t sit (saved for Verizon bigwigs). I sat in the 4th row center of a balcony (behind the Verizon folks) probably not 20 feet from the stage. I had an unobstructed view of Keith most of the time and was happy to sit even though I couldn’t be quite as up close and personal. If only I were younger or hardier!

Keith was back in a teeshirt tonight - grayish but with some kind of red curlicues or marking near the left side of his waist. Really skinny leg jeans. The more muted lighting at HOB didn’t show up his golden highlights as much as at the Rodeo. He and the guys seemed to be in great spirits and thanked the venue and Verizon for making the concert possible and all of us for coming out and thanked Texas for always making them feel like family. They began with the usual favorites - Days Go By, Better Half (no flub tonight), and Stupid Boy. Keith just burned up his guitar solos and interludes time after time (Stupid Boy, Raining On Sunday, Once InA Lifetime (yes - it was back after nearly a year!) and in songs from the new album: Sweet Thing, Kiss A Girl, Til Summer Comes Around) last night. I think he was really intent on rocking the House of Blues and rock he did!! I overheard the admiring comments of several guys sitting around me who obviously had been unfamiliar with our ‘guitar god’! Wow - he was so smoking hot and introduced some special new flourishes here and there for the No Frills crowd. No Frills was a misnomer when it comes to their performance! Lots of special performance “frills”!!

Kiss a girl was the first new song to be performed and it was so much fun. I’m really enjoying it although each time I hear it I wonder whether Keith is a Modest Mouse fan because the chord progression reminds me so much of one of their (very different) song Blame It on the Tetons already engrained in my brain. Does anyone else think the variation on the chorus “Make a little magic baby” has special meaning? A little bit later he did a new ballad "Only you can love me this way."Very sweet, with a very interesting guitar intro. I just love the refrain “And you’re always in my heart, always on my mind...” But of course it was ‘Til Summer Comes Around that was the real thriller, giving me goosebumps all over, I just love that song. I don’t remember this being mentioned about Valdosta, but last night the song was accompanied by the sounds of waves crashing on the beach. And that made sense of some more new video excerpts on the stage backdrops in Houston last night - ocean beach shots that didn’t connect for me since last night he didn’t sing this song.

A few of the funny spots last night - Keith singing a few lines of Deep in the Heart of Texas. Keith telling us that “the pollen in Dallas was kicking his a$$ (and the pollen in Houston and Nashville was kicking his a$$ as well). But we’re here and we’re gonna rock anyway!” and he apologized if he consequently sounded like a 70’s lounge singer (tee hee) (fat chance!). He did get a little hoarse at times at the end of the night but as always Keith gave it his all. He kept encouraging the crowd and calling upon us to sing (and we did - much more so than in Houston) - “Here we go!” “Don’t let us down now! “ “You’re sounding good tonight!” “We’re cookin’ now!”

Before Raining On Sunday he gave a bit of a tribute to all the great singers/songwriters that cam from Texas - Van Sant, Crowell, Jennings, Holly, Whitney, and the writer of this song Radney Foster and brought back the electric guitar solo in that song. In Sweet Thing he shouted out “Come out and meet me mama!” (but we never caught sight of Nicole if she was there). We had the unique treat of hearing Tonight I Wanna Cry done on acoustic guitar because they had no piano last night. During You Look Good In My Shirt he did not leave the stage but did move to each stage end, which he hadn’t done earlier, and performed near the stage edge as fans patted his boots and reached for his legs. A couple times during the night he lead us in his “Yeah, yeah, yeahs” but our favorite was when the follow-up line to the yeah-yeahs was Keith singing “Wanna stay a little longer?” Of course that elicited screams and Keith said in the cutest matter of fact voice - “Oh, okay!” Then he teased us by saying but he knew it was a school night and he would really understand if we wanted to go home! HA! So they kept going and later confessed that they were supposed to end at 10:30 but they really wanted to do a couple more songs - okay?

When they finally did have to go Keith again said “I appreciate you guys coming out so much!” The applause and screams were just thunderous for such a small crowd - my ears were ringing from the audience response! When I couldn’t scream and clap anymore I just had to shout out “Thank you, thank you, thank you” at the top of my lungs. I hope Keith really knows how much we appreciate him. Yes there were some 1200-1500 hundred people there but, as I said to Kathy as we left, it felt like Keith was playing in my living room. A very special night!! (videos to come)