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!
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