Sorry to be a little slow posting but 2 late concert nights and 6 hours of driving from St. Paul to Chi-town left me one tired puppy last night, and then this morning we headed to Green Bay. It is past midnight again so I hope I make sense here.
The Zac Brown Band is growing on me. Besides their single hits I really like what they call their “summer song” (toes in the water, ass in the sand…) and also a song written while they were in Byron Bay (Australia) about being “free as we’ll ever be” (sorry I don’t know actual titles) into which they blended a little Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic last night. And then their reggae beat song into which they incorporate a little of Marley’s One Love. I think I will pick up one of the autographed CDs they have at the show.
Take Back the City (which signaled the start of Keith’s show out east) has been replaced by My Love Opens the Door to Your Heart the last two nights. An appropriate lyric to lead into this show, no? Allstate Arena is a little bit smaller venue with no nosebleed seats. The satellite stage only had a small amount of floor space around it and it was partially surrounded by the sound mix area fence tonight.
Tonight Keith wore dusty brown jeans and a brown plaid shirt, shirttails out, which had a metallic thread running through the plaid, so it did sparkle a little all over. His eyes looked a little tired but otherwise he looked great. Chicago just loved him to bits! The entire arena was on their feet for the whole 2+ hours, singing loudly, totally into to it. Keith reminded the crowd "The last time we were here we played a place called Joe's (cheers). Now we have a damn good Friday Illinois Night!"
Allstate Arena and its Ticketmaster seating charts are notorious for mistakes. Last tour floor section 4 was much farther back than pictured so there were quite a few people disappointed with their seats. This year section 4 was “left floor” when I bought the tickets but it became center floor last week when they suddenly changed the seating chart online! So my daughter Annie and I were in row 20 in line with the centerstage mic and catwalk. Pretty good in terms of closeness, but too many moving heads to shoot good videoclips most of the time. The debate about whether floor seats or low risers seats are better continues.
Annie is sometimes a bit timid on her own, but has been following Mom’s rather disinhibited lead during our 3 day Keith Urban Road Trip. Tonight as Better Half was being performed we slipped out of our row 20 seats and walked towards the back of the arena just as Keith was leaving the main stage. We weren’t quite quick enough to get to one of the limited spaces on the front side of the satellite stage, but we did score spots on the fence surrounding the rear of the stage, perhaps 8 feet away from Keith. We all know that the “back view” is nothing to sneeze at! : ) He did turn to face us occasionally so we were more than happy to be there. We had a close-up view of him performing Once In A Lifetime (with a bit of a special ending) and Making Memories Of Us. No sign reading tonight. When he finished on the small stage Keith turned over his guitar to his crew (which he hasn’t done before), so that he could be more closely surrounded by his body guards during the trip back to the main stage this evening. In fact they almost made a pretty tight “Keith sandwich” (body guard-Keith-body guard) to avoid some of the head grabbing of last evening. Because of that his return to the stage was much faster than yesterday.
I don’t think I have mentioned that Keith has incorporated, in the production, a couple of links, if you will, to the LPATWCT tour. We see a colorful silhouetted fiddler (Brad?) on the video screens (a la Shine) towards the end of If Ever I Could Love and then we see the large “cracked” heart of LPATWCT, in red this year, during the “a beating, braver heart” lyrics of that song. These spark a special familiarity and recollection of other wonderful concert nights in those who enjoyed the previous tour.
When it is time for Raining on Sunday Keith gave us some really lovely, new melodic guitar play and then, again, a very percussive intro to ROS as he walks down the catwalk. But then he begins improvising a sweet little song for us:
Are we in a singing mood Chicago?
Are we feeling good Chicago?
It feels real good to be here with you on a Friday night.
At the Allstate Arena everybody’s looking good and I’m feelin’ alright
I’m kinda making this up as I go along
But I gotta good feeling that with you there’s no way I can go wrong!
(and that last line is really the truth in Chicago!) I guess he could feel the love the crowd was radiating.What a treat!
The after show interactions with the audience have gotten longer this week (although not as long as last year). Keith goes from the center catwalk to each of the side platforms, bowing, saluting and thanking the audience, slaps hands along the stage edge and small catwalk, signs a couple autographs. The guys toss out picks, wristbands and drum sticks. And then they are off. I can only imagine that Keith must collapse once he winds down a little with all the incredible energy and stenuous physical work that he puts in the show.“Cardiovascularly challenging” was how he put it, but it is so much more than that! Even I collapse (but then I have very sweet dreams!).
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