Preface (from Wednesday afternoon) - Woo Hoo!!! My daughter Sara, who now lives and works in Chicago just won tickets to Keith Urban's private show at Joe's Bar Saturday from the downtown Verizon Store!! I screamed into the phone when she called me, I'm tickled to death and Hubby and I will make a weekend of it (as long as he doesn't have to go see Keith lol). My sister had tried to win yesterday at the Lake Zurich store but there were 150 trying for the 25 pairs of tickets so she wasn't lucky, and my brother-in-law was set to try at the Plainfield Verizon Thursday! I'm convinced my "Keith Karma", as we call it, was the result of me paying-it-forward this afternoon. I ran a contest among my 320 students this semester for 2 free tickets to see Dierks Bentley and Gloriana here in town Friday night. Not 10 minutes after I awarded the free tickets, I got the call from Sara!
Joe’s Bar was set up with about 9 long tables perpendicular to the stage, each seating 16 people and a few more bar stools here and there. Those 200 people in line in front of us had more than filled all the tables, so the last 100 of us were in the standing room only area beyond the tables. I chose to stand at the end of of the center table, right in line with Keith’s microphone, so had a great view. It seems like we waited forever -apparently the meet and greet and photos with Keith that some contest winners had scored were taking longer than planned in a mezzanine area just above us. It was nearly 1:30 when our hero finally made it down to the stage, preceded by Chicago Bears Tight End Greg Olson who apparently had been at the meet and greet. Not sure if Greg is an avid Keith fan or whether they just met at Joe’s Bar (Greg was involved in a charity event there Friday night). Although, as a bar event, they had checked to make sure we were all 21 or older (ha!), I saw some extra special VIP take two little girls up to the meet and greet. Does Greg Olson have kids?
Today Keith looked very much like his photo on the Verizon posters - he was wearing almost an identical shade of plaid shirt (but short-sleeved and without a teeshirt) and was just as yummy as could be, We had been warned ahead of time not to take flash photos or shoot video or we might be removed from the event, so I was a bit nervous about using my camera. My attempts at non-flash photos were almost complete failures, so I eventually took my chances and switched to the video setting. But I didn’t want to be too obvious so I held my camera in front of my chest rather than in front of my face, so pardon if my focus is not as steady as usual!
The “brief acoustic set” of this new type of Verizon event is longer than a backstage experience performance but quite a bit shorter than the “No Frills” shows earlier this year. Apparently they had pizza available to us (kind of like a BSE) in the back room but I don’t think many people were willing to leave the spots that each had staked out to go get food (I certainly didn’t).We were treated to 5 songs and perhaps 8 or 9 “questions” from the audience. Sitting on a bar stool on stage first said that it was nice to be back in Chicago and that they had begun the tour right here (the Joe’s Bar “No Frills”) and now were ending the tour here, so had come full circle. He said he’d play a few songs and then have some time for a few probing, deeply personal, inappropriate questions - hee hee. Keith then asked what we wanted to hear and about 100 shouted out song titles. Keith sang Days Go By and then my request : ) I’m In, which was just wonderful! Then took a few “questions”. The first was more of a longish testimonial on what Keith’s music had meant in one fan’s life and a few were requests rather than true questions (Will you sign my poster, sign my license plate, take a picture with me...)( and Keith was very tolerant and obliged). (The audience was already envious of those who got him to sign things, but really were green with envy when he invited the photo requester up on stage and gave her a hug and maybe even a a little kiss on the cheek!)
But a few of the questions were interesting: “Have you written any songs for Sunday yet, and if so will you record them?” Keith said no, he hadn’t written any songs yet. He had composed a little piano piece for her, but that was it. He then was asked if he would play it. He quickly said “No, that’s personal.” but then followed it up with “Its for piano - it just wouldn’t work on guitar.” He was asked who he would most like to collaborate with in the future. Keith didn’t exactly respond to the question as asked, but did volunteer that he might be collaborating with John Mayer in 2010. Interesting! When asked if he could play with any band, which would he choose. Keith said he thought playing with the Beatles would be interesting. Another asked what were his 3 favorite songs to perform and he said that he really didn’t have favorites. Keith tried calling on a male in the crowd, but apparently the guy’s wife or girlfriend usurped the opportunity to talk to Keith! But I was happy she did because what she did was praise Keith for always thinking about his audiences and going out to the small stage to give those in the rear a bit of personal attention and how wonderful and awesome he was to do that. Another asked what was the craziest thing that ever happened on tour and what was going through his mind during it. He said that hands down it was Taylor’s prank and what was going through his mind was what the hell is going on?, who the hell are these people? when did Kiss arrive? “I actually thought it was them for a moment!”
Then a few more songs - Kiss a Girl and Jeans On (!!! I was so pleased to hear this one!!!) Keith smiled a lot and complimented our singing. And a couple more questions: When asked if he could join any band, which would he choose. Keith said he thought playing with the Beatles would be interesting. He started joking with the question asker because she had her questions written down and suddenly I realized another diehard Iowa Keith fan “Jeans-on-gal” had also managed to win a ticket to this Illinois event! We are two peas in a pod when it comes to being crazy, highly motivated Keith followers! Another gal asked if he was writing yet for a new album and he said they will just start writing in the next couple months and would probably get into the studio early next year. I waved my arm like crazy but never got to ask if there would be any arena shows next year.
Before he sang Stupid Boy Keith thanked the audience for coming out and again thanked Chicago. He said he had been coming to Chicago since the Ranch days - some 14 years and Chicago had always been good to him.
It was over way too soon - thirty five minutes after he entered the room Keith slipped out the side door. I had hardly gotten past that initial stunned gawking phase (“He’s here, he’s here”!) to the point where I could settle into and experience the music and then it was time to leave. So short and sweet and such a tease. My daughter thought she saw Keith in one of the SUVs with darkened windows outside of Joe’s as we left. I couldn't see anything but looked longingly at the SUV as it pulled away nevertheless. How will we make it to the first of the 2010 shows????
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