I had hoped to have company on my Brooks & Dunn roadtrip but it turned out that my best buddy couldn’t make it and neither could my sister or daughters. After offering a free ticket to online friends but finding no takers, I ended up selling my extra on Ebay and making the trip on my own. Although I would have loved company, I also love the freedom of being on my own and felt the excitement of hitting the open road to a town I had never visited. It was a lovely day for a drive across the Mississippi.
I didn’t know that Bloomington and Normal, Illinois were adjacent and continuous communities. When I selected a hotel close to the Bloomington arena, I hadn’t even noticed that it had a Normal, IL address (somehow it felt wrong to stay in “Normal” - I think I’d feel more at home in “Abnormal” lol). I checked in at the Candlewood Inn and had just enough time to grab a bite before heading to downtown Bloomington. I paid to park in what looked like someone’s back yard just a block away from the show.
US Cellular Coliseum is nice small arena. There were perhaps 30 rows of seats on the floor and five sets of risers on each side. I was in the 8th row of the risers at the rear of the arena and even those seats weren’t too bad.
Jason Aldean was opening for Brooks & Dunn but I was surprised to find that a young performer I had not heard of preceded Jason. Although he looked about 13 years old, Tyler Dickerson is actually sixteen. I was a bit dubious when he and his band appeared on stage, but I have to say I found him quite engaging. Although I wish he had chosen a smaller cowboy hat so we could more often see his eyes under its brim, he had a strong voice and wrote some rocking songs that suited his youth (“I’m just like Hank, I just can’t drink” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgL7qhvu5WA (not my video but defintely worth a listen) and “Hey mister won’t you sell me a fake ID” : ) ) I think this young man is going to be a hit!
I’m not sure whether it was the clarity of Tyler’s voice or the absence of screams from the audience during his set that made the difference, but it wasn’t until Jason came on stage that I realized that the Coliseum’s sound left something to be desired (at least for those of us towards the rear of the arena). So I’m afraid the audio on my videoclips is not as clear as usual.
Before the stage was revealed for the start of Jason’s set, we could see his backlit silhouette, with his guitar, projected larger than life, on the curtains. It was clear from the screams that he had a large following there in Illinois. He rocked through all of his hits and has begun to master the art of interacting with his fans while he sings, moving around much more than when I saw him open for Keith last ear. He managed to sign many autographs on hats and posters (and one on a pink guitar), shake many hands, and even laid down on the catwalk near the end of his hour to pose for photos with some of the gals that lined the walkway. He chatted with the audience a bit before Big Green Tractor, but it would be nice to hear even more from him between songs. I liked the ‘mood lighting’ at the start of Laughed Until We Cried but wished the sound was better. Jason closed with a rapped cover of Kid Rock’s “Cowboy” but I would have preferred that he just sing ( not rap) one of his own songs.
Waiting for Brooks and Dunn to come on I chatted with my ‘date’ for the night (well, the Illinois State University fellow who had bought my ticket ; ). They showed a cute video akin to the BBQ video included at Keith Urban shows - Kix and Ronnie escaping from a huge bumper-to-bumper traffic jam in their Toyota Tundra, stopping at a gas station for an urgent bathroom stop for Kix, while Ronnie slides out a nifty grill attachment from their truck bed and starts grilling for a bunch of admiring young ladies. The video ends with a nice thank you to the audience from Kix and Ronnie for their great 20 year ride. Their signature steer skull was everywhere on the set - on the curtains, on the backdrop and in many of the video images, and a particularly immense skull front and center above the stage. There was even a “mirror ball” steer skull rotating during “Neon Moon”!
Kix sat and talked with the audience for a while, wiping a tear from his cheek at one point. The dynamic duo sang hit after hit. They also sang several tracks from their very first album (being a relative newbie to country music, these songs were not familiar to me). But of course they saved the very best songs to last and I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief that their favorite “Believe” or “Neon Moon” or “Brand New Man” was not going be be omitted from this Last Rodeo show. Of course it was Boot Scootin Boogie that closed the show, with Kix spinning a young lady from the audience. It was a nice “farewell” show but I’m betting that this won’t be the last that we see of these two great country gents.
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