ONLY 22 DAYS UNTIL KEITH URBAN'S GET CLOSER TOUR!!

My suitcase is open and being packed. My reservations have been made. I've been working out to build my concert stamina. Tickets have been purchased - some nearly six months ago! I know all the lyrics and have watched the videoclips of the Australian leg of the tour with eager anticipation. I am oh-so-ready and counting down the days until June 16 - the opening day of the U.S. leg of Keith Urban's Get Closer Tour and the start of a record "Linda's Urban Journey" over the next several months.

Your roving reporter, Linda

June 16 Biloxi, MS June 17 Jacksonville, FL June 18 Tampa, FL June 23 Columbia, SC

June 24 Charlotte, NC June 25 Raleigh, NC June 29 St. Louis, MO June 30 Moline, IL

July 7 Hershey, PA July 8 Boston, MA July 9 Uncasville, CT July 10 Uncasville, CT

July 14 Newark, NJ July 15 Philadelphia, PA July 16 Albany, NY July 19 Columbus, OH

July 21 Cleveland, OH July 22 Grand Rapids, MI July 23 Detroit, MI July 29 Toledo, OH

July 31 Ft. Wayne, IN August 4 Atlanta, GA August 6 Nashville, TN August 11 Cincinnati, OH

August 12 Knoxville, TN August 13 Augusta, GA August 18 Tulsa, OK August 19 Kansas City, MO

August 20 Omaha, NE August 25 Jonesboro, AR August 26 Tupelo, MS August 27 Lafayette, LA

August 28 Dallas, TX September 8 Buffalo, NY September 29 Seattle, WA October 1 San Jose, CA

October 2 Sacramento, CA October 4 Fresno, CA October 7 Glendale, AZ October 8 Los Angeles, CA

October 11 Denver, CO October 13 Milwaukee, WI October 14 Chicago, IL October 15 Minneapolis, MN

Funny - after living in Iowa for 35 years I made my first trip to Sioux City three weeks ago to see Darius Rucker perform, and then found myself going there again last Thursday to see Tim McGraw in concert. Different venue this time - Tim would be in the Tyson Arena while Darius had been in a lovely old theatre.

Since school was out my youngest daughter (who just graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Graphic Design) was able to accompany me on this adventure. Annie was coming from Ames and I from Cedar Falls, so we set up a rendez-vous where our routes to Sioux City would converge. Webster City is a small town neither of us had been to but I figured both of us could find the only 'big' store in town (K-Mart). We met up just fine, feeling a bit like secret agents who should have exchanged some code words at our designated meeting place. Before we could leave Webster City we just had to make a stop at a local snack shop for beverages just because of their great name: Whoop-ti-do's and La-ti-da's! : )

A rainstorm at just the wrong moment meant we had to dash to the arena with our tiny umbrellas threatening to turn inside out in the gusting wind and found our seats not long before the start of the show. Tim is touring with 2 opening acts - The Band Perry and Luke Bryan. He has a very extensive catwalk to give as many fans that "front row experience" as possible. The walk goes out about 15 rows, meeting up with a crosswalk which then had further extensions going even deeper into the arena. He also had a platform at the very rear of the floor. I had joined his fan club at a time when he was donating the membership fees to disaster relief and was pleasantly surprised to get 5th row seats in my very first fan club presale. But then I was a little worried once the show began. The Band Perry played almost their entire set out on the mid-arena catwalk, so we mostly saw their backs. I hoped that would not be the case once Tim took the stage. Annie, like myself, enjoyed The Band Perry but voiced the thought that had been running through my mind: "The guys don't do much." It is true that they are really like a solo singer and her back-up band.

Annie really enjoyed Luke Bryan's engaging party-atmosphere performance and thought he was pretty cute. Here is a bit of his "All My Friends" complete with a butt-waggle, and also a bit of Boom-Boom from his upcoming album. Yes, he is a good performer, but much of his "party" music is not my cup of tea. My favorites are his more serious love songs.

Finally it was time for the main act. I thought the musical introduction in the darkened arena (meant, no doubt, to build the anticipation to a frenzy) was a bit much. Then Tim shocked everyone by beginning the show on the platform at the rear of the arena!! I could not even see him from our 5th row seats and there were nothing on the video screens for us front-of-the-arena folks. So we just had to listen to the first 2-3 songs - a bit of a disappointment, although I'm sure the rear arena audience was thrilled. Tim then slowly made his way up the floor and catwalk to the front as he was singing. He is looking thin and very buff (in contrast to the last time I saw him in Milwaukee when he was bulked up and in full beard for a movie role).

The show was a mix of old and new songs and Tim was pretty constantly on the move on the catwalk. He did not spend very much time at all on the stage, which was a bit of a shame for us, considering our seat location. Here are a few of my favorites:

Red Ragtop

Just the Cowboy in Me

Real Good Man

Please Remember Me

Wanna Go Crazy

Live Like You Are Dying

Tim brought The Band Perry out for a duet of Can't Really Be Gone and later, Luke Bryan for . He also sang a cover of Lionel Ritchie's Sail On and told us he had been thrilled to sing that song with Lionel for an upcoming album.

Enjoying Old and New Favorites With John Mellencamp

(A belated post because I went out of town shortly after the Mellencamp concert)

I have been a fan of John Cougar Mellencamp for a long time. It had been quite a while since I last went to one of his live shows, so I was excited to see he would be performing at Iowa State University in Ames, where my youngest goes to school. I got online soon after the tickets went on sale and scored a great seat. Although it was labeled Row 4 it turned out not to be 4 rows from the stage because there were a few rows of seats in the pit that had not been included in the count, but still - a good seat. I was surprised after purchasing my ticket to receive an email from the Mellencamp crew with a free download of his most recent album! At least I think it was free - I didn’t notice any indication that I was also buying the album when I bought my ticket. More about the album in a minute.

ISU is about 90 minutes from home. I arrived in time to stop for some Thai food before the show. I didn’t notice until shortly before showtime that my ticket said “Movie: 7:00; Concert 8:30”! Apparently John was showing a movie first!

If you aren’t familiar with Mellencamp’s newest (and 21st!!) album, No Better Than This, it is quite a departure from most of his earlier music and was approached in a fascinating way. It was recorded old style - with a single microphone which the small band clustered around, and taped on an old mono reel-to-reel tape recorder, giving it a very distinctive old school sound. Not only that, all the songs were recorded in historic spots for bluesy music - Sun Studios (standing in the same spot where Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis had each recorded), the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio (where Robert Johnson recorded), and the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, one of the oldest African-American parishes in the country. John’s songs on the album are bluesy, folksy pieces and they sound like John is singing in your living room. Other arrangements and instrumentation sound like they could have been played on the Grand Ol’ Opry years ago. The hour-long film, it turned out, mostly documented the making of this album in these unique locations, with some concert footage and interesting clips of John during the year they were traveling and recording. The process of making the album was really interesting, but I also really enjoyed the little peeks into Mellencamp’s life - like he and his wife both being baptized while they were at the First African Baptist Church - a full body baptism - no little dribble of holy water on the head. Many in the audience did not exactly welcome the idea of an hour long film and retreated to the lobby to drink or wandered in and out, chattering with their neighbors. The movie took the place of an opening act.

Interestingly, the music that John played to announce the concert was about to begin was Johnny Cash’s The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer - a hint about many of the folksy, story-telling songs that we would be hearing during the evening. John was in a suit, looked quite formal for the first half of the show and chewed gum throughout the night (Nicorette perhaps? It was clear from the movie that John is still smoking after all these years). Then he finally took off his suit jacket and performed for a while in a short sleeved black shirt. By the final songs of the evening that shirt was completely unbuttoned, revealing an undershirt underneath. Definitely old school! : )

It was obvious that the crowd was hungry for Mellencamp classics and there were frequent shouts of one request or another. Although he started out with an oldie (The Authority Song), John asked us to be patient - we’d be getting to those favorites, but of course he was anxious to perform many tracks off the new album as well. He played my very favorite of these - Save Some Time to Dream . I so liked the lyrics of this song that I tried to figure out a way to send it to all of my graduating seniors this semester (but our university system blocks most music-sharing). Another powerful song from the new album, The West End, was, to me, John's equivalent to Johnny's John Henry.

We had to wait until the end of the evening for Small Town, Jack and Diane, Rockin’ in the USA,

Pink Houses, and, the closing song, Hurt So Good. There was no encore, but we all left singing or humming

the music of this man who has become an American classic.

Viva Las Vegas! Keith Urban & John Mayer @ Tiger Jam

Friday was the last class day of the academic year at my university. Although we still have final exams and grading next week, a weekend trip to Las Vegas to see a special Keith Urban/John Mayer concert was a great way to celebrate the end of the semester!

I had to get up at 4:45 am to make it to my 6:45 flight. Being a nervous sleeper I woke up at 4:30 before the alarm even went off (I’m sure hubby appreciated that). Turns out that was a good thing because Delta had emailed in the middle of the night with a 15 minute earlier flight time change! Wonder how many missed the flight because they don’t check email at the wee hours of the morning? The flight to Vegas was full to the gills; Sin City is still drawing the travelers!

Mandalay Bay was too pricey for me since they bump up rates whenever an event is scheduled (been there, done that last time Keith was here anyway), so I decided to stay at the Pyramid shaped Luxor next door (where the rate for Sunday night was only $50!). My room in the Pyramid looks out over the huge Sphinx that guards the main entrance. It is a bit disconcerting, however, to ride to my 12th floor in elevators that are also traveling sideways (to follow the 60 degree slant of the Pyramid) as they ascend - I felt off-balance even though I hadn’t been drinking. Luxor also earned my thanks with the complementary copy of the oversized Mlife with Keith’s photo on the cover and interview inside.

Vegas is in the 60’s this weekend, so some are complaining it is too cold to lounge by pools, but I think it is just perfect. I had a wonderful seafood lunch at Rick Moonan’s restaurant (one of the chefs I had seen many times on Top Chef Masters), then slept for a couple hours to get ready for a show that wouldn’t even begin until 10:30 pm Central time/8:30 Las Vegas time. I noticed Tiger Woods had taken over the House of Blues in Mandalay Bay for a private pre-show Tiger Jam party (but he forgot my invitation: ). I wonder if John and Keith attended?

A younger singer, Tyler Hilton, opened the show with a lot of energy and emotional expression in his acoustic set. Then we saw a short video of Tiger talking about his charitable foundation which helps prepare and send thousands of ‘underrepresented’ kids to college each year. Then Tiger actually came out on stage to thank us all for coming and supporting Tiger Jam and said that “Seven time Grammy Award winner John Mayer” would be out in just a few minutes. (I had wondered whether John might perform first this time around. At their concert at the Gorge John had seemed rather distraught when he slipped and said something about how great it was to have someone like Keith Urban “opening” for him. Although he immediately corrected his statement (since both Keith & John were headlining that show), I had a feeling John might “open” this year.)

Never looking quite the same, John tonight wore a fedora over his quite long hair all night, layered shirts and somewhat raggedy loose jeans. He played several songs that he identified as brand-new and just a few of his more familiar tunes. He does jam with abandon. His whole body gets into his rhythms and his whole face gets into his lyrics, so he is fun to watch. I was a bit disappointed though when he sang Gravity on his own. I do love him singing that song, but had hoped that Keith would be out to join him on that number like last time. But in fact John did not have Keith join him on any of his songs for some reason. At the very end of his approximately hour long set, John did bring out Keith and they performed Cripple Creek together (a bit of an odd song choice for the two of them, in my mind). It was a fun number, but it wouldn’t have been my pick for their first duet of the evening- especially to this Vegas crowd. Then there was a 15-20 minute break while they moved John’s equipment off stage and Keith’s equipment onstage.

It was a mixed crowd last night. No doubt there were fans of both musicians present but others may have been there primarily to support Tiger Jam and others may have just been Vegas tourists looking for a show. As a result there were some ‘standers’ and some ‘sitters’, some who sang and danced most of the night, and others that looked at us dancers a bit strangely. I was a bit appalled when I heard another woman in the bathroom saying “I think he is that guy who sings about cats and sweaters.” Harumpf.

I was surprised that the upper tier of seats was mostly empty - the Gorge show had drawn such an immense crowd to western Washington but this Vegas show did not appear to be sold out unless some folks bought tickets to support the charity and then didn’t come.

Keith has had his hair cut fairly short (for him). The front is still fairly long but the back no longer touches his collar unless he tilts his head back. It looks like the un-buttoned 3 button tee-shirt we have seen a couple times lately is going to be the shirt for this year’s shows. Of course he looks good in any kind of shirt! Tonight’s was dark blue - has that been the case each time this year?

Keith started out with a rousing (arousing?) performance of Put You in a Song. Then Better Half, which I believe he chose to get the crowd involved in one of his ‘echo rounds’ of singing “oo na na na na’s”. He was successful getting a good response from each area of the arena in turn and encouraged us along the way with “Hell yeah Vegas- sounds good!” and “Sounding pretty bloody good!” and finally cracking up the crowd with his deep baritone “oo na na’s”. He also did some nice jamming on the Better Half melody both before and after the sing-along.

Then three more songs from Get Closer (You’re Gonna Fly, Without You and Long Hot Summer. When Keith sat down on his stool for Without You he apparently got some “I love you’s” shouted from the front floor and commented “A dude just said I love you!” and, as Keith is wont to due, he said “I love you too” back to the guy. He then expanded on this “I’m in love with you brother.... What happens in Vegas.....” lol Without You was beautiful and Long Hot Summer kept the crowd clapping and dancing along.

Keith then paused and said “ I want to say a huge thank you to everybody out there tonight for coming out and being a part of this jam this year. We appreciate your support!” He then continued “ One of the most joyful things is to be able to play again with this guy - John Mayer.” So 30 minutes into Keith’s set John returned to the stage so they could play together some more. They had a great time with Sweet Thing, doing a full 3 minutes of melodic jamming after the lyrics ended. Then a seering hot Til Summer Comes Around where the 2.5 minute guitar solo (well, guitart duet I guess) had the audience screaming their approval. After that Keith garnered another round of applause with a parting “Mr. John Mayer” as John left the stage.

The seat that I got in the Monkeyville presale was pretty good - it was in the last row (row Q) of the lower risers closest to the stage, so I had a great view. I had chatted early in the evening with 2 couples next to me in Q. At one point they had walked down the stairs next to us to take some photos from a closer vantage point and then had stayed standing in that aisle when no one had chased them. It seemed some folks did not return to their seats after the break before Keith’s set (stupid people!), so eventually one of my new row Q friends came up and told me I should come down and take one of the vacated seats in the second row of the risers. So I did “Get Closer” for a few songs: ). Not only that - I was able to move to the first row when Keith came off the stage during his final song, You Look Good in my Shirt and managed to get me a little “vitamin K”, stroking his arm as he returned to stage. Normally that might not have been possible if he had returned playing his guitar, but he gave away the guitar when up in the stands, so had his arms outstetched and waving to his fans during his walk back. Some people think it is good luck to rub the belly of a statue of Buddha. I choose to consider a KU arm rub a good luck sign of a great tour to come!

Sadly, only 52 minutes after coming on stage - at 11:30 sharp - Keith and the guys were taking their final bow and the old exit song Marley’s “One Love” was playing on the speakers. I can’t believe he planned to play only 52 minutes - I think either Tyler, John or the set-up crews must have taken too long and the venue had specified an 11:30 ending time, so Keith lost out. It was a great show, but 52 minutes (9 songs) (not counting Cripple Creek) is even shorter than the Houston Rodeo performance!

As long as I had traveled all that distance, I took advantage of my remaining time in Vegas - seeing the Cirque du Soleil “O” show and visiting the restaurants of a couple more chefs I had seen on the cooking shows. I even went to a very educational museum - type ‘show’ (they call everything shows in Vegas) Bodies - fascinating displays of all are various body parts, both in glass cases and in incredible preserved cadavers. Since I teach biological psychology courses including Neuroanatomy, think I can claim this as a business trip???

Videos to come as soon as I downlod my camera....