Goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come

Going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come! I headed out towards KC fairly early in the morning, hoping to arrive there in time for the A,T & T contest. I made pretty good time and arrived 60-90 minutes before contest time. There were already several dedicated Monkeys lined up on the sidewalk in front of the store, including a few I had been hoping to meet for quite a while.

I went into the store to add my name to the sign-up list, then joined the gals out front. We had a good time chatting and sharing stories and the line grew little by little. We were all excited when the familiar staffers drove up with their bag on envelopes and one signed CD. I came SO close to a BSE today I was really bummed afterwards. The women on either side of me in line won BSEs!! : ( I realized after the fact that if the pair of Texas gals in front of me, who were traveling together, had not told that little white lie “No, we’re not together,” so each of them would get a prize envelope, the BSE envelope would have been mine. No fair!

I hadn’t gotten Christmas presale tickets to Kansas City so just relied on the regular Ticketmaster presale. I got a single in the center floor which I estimated would be reasonably close to the small stage. As an afterthought I spun the Ticketmaster wheel again and bought a second ticket in case my daughter could come with. I couldn’t get another floor seat but did turn up a row 2 seat in the risers next to the stage. When later I discovered that Annie couldn’t come that day I tried to sell my extra for several weeks on Monkeyville without success, so I thought I might move back and forth between the 2 seats tonight.

Jake was wearing a pale purple button down shirt tonight. He gave a bit of an introduction before his song A Place Call Heaven.

Early in the tour the Keith’s silvery curtain had been ‘featured” before his opening song, with rosy lights and fans to make the curtain ripple in a visually interesting way. But that seems to have been discontinued in recent shows - kind of a shame because it looked pretty neat. Guess it went away like Keith’s a cappella “I wanna put you in my car” before the band joined in that we saw earlier.

As all of the guys came out together to sing Put You in a Song Keith looked gorgeous, as usual and it looked to me like Brian had trimmed his hair a bit shorter as well.

During I Told You So Keith shouted out “Do you want to sing KC?” and then had a bit of fun with the end of the song. He followed the “And I won’t say I told you so,” with “I ain’t gonna say it, I ain’t gonna say it, I can’t bring myself to say it, but... oh, here it comes!”

“I told you so!”

Tonight was a great Raining on Sunday Night. The steamy guitar solo at the end is different from the one in the ROS video. I get the sense that not everyone in the audience is familiar with ROS however - the audience singing of this song does not seem to be as strong as it was in earlier tours, when I recall one male reviewer describing how he had been wowed by 20,000 women in the audience singing ROS. I think the audiences today contain many very young women for whom ROS, like Jeans On, is ‘before their time’.

Keith had fun playing with his spotlight on the upper risers crowd. He read quite a few signs, thanking fans for their positive comments on the tour, how he is ‘making summer hotter’ and how they want to get closer. He read one that said “ Spank me Keith - its my birthday!” and said I’ll take a raincheck on that. Another said “Pick please!” and Keith gave the guy a pick. And then one that provoked a regional response saying “The only KU we love is Keith Urban!” which made the Kansas State supporters cheer and the University of Kansas (KU) supporters boo. “Because we need a little controversy!” said Keith. Finally he read one that said “Brandy’s last fling before the ring,” and he invited her up on stage. He followed his invitation with a rendition of few lines from that old 80’s song “Cause Brandy’s such a fine girl...Such a fine girl!” When she arrived on stage he noticed she was wearing a bachelorette crown and joked “And gentlemen this is the final rose...” then asked her about when she was getting married (Sept 19) and wished her a happy marriage, happy love and happy life.

Keith then continued “So the idea tonight is that it is ts all about liberation, no fences, no security down here - it is complete pandemonium! We don’t need you to be polite, we don’t need you to be well-mannered. We want you to be uncouth and unruly. Whether you are up top, back there, down front - we are all under the same roof. Its not me and you - its us and we’re here to have a great time.” and then went into Long Hot Summer.

After Stupid Boy, when Keith strolled out on the catwalk with his acoustic for Silly Love Song, he preceded it with the first few lines of “Going to Kansas City” and sang “kansas City here I come” with a bit of a sexy growl. He then changed the next lines to “Got a lot of crazy women there and I’m gonna play to some.” A little later we got a little extra special acoustic playfulness before Without You.

Although I sat in my second row riser seat for Jake’s set and the early part of Keith’s set, when I knew it was getting to be time for the trip back to the satellite stage I made way down to my seat in Row 15 of the floor - just 2 seats away from the stage!! I got in a little “vitamin K” shoulder rub as Keith made his way to the stage and then thoroughly enjoyed being up close in my very own seat for a change, rather than in the masses that crowd the aisle just behind the small stage. Here is I'm In and Jeans On. Enjoy my view! : )

There was no Little Big Town excerpt after You’re Gonna Fly tonight! Instead they went straight to Keith’s story introducing Georgia Woods. Now the guys have added a little slide guitar emphasis to Keith’s story line, definitely giving it a little extra “down home South” flavor.

I was glad to be back in my second row left risers seat when Keith came over to the left platform just feet away from me for Sweet Thing. But despite my waving and hooting, I didn't have any luck getting picked for the Kiss a Girl Sing-Off. The first girl to sing said she felt like she was going to pass out (understandable!) : ). Keith decided it was a tie between the 2 female contestants.

We had the special treat of having Jake and Keith perform Jack and Diane during the encore.

I made it back to my hotel just fine but shortly after that severe thunderstorms moved into town, waking me up several times during the night with thunderclaps and driving rain. So driving, in fact, that even though I ws in a highrise hotel, the driving rain cam in through the air conditioner vents and a good five feet of carpeting next to the windows was soaked when I got up in the morning. The storms had also knocked out the functioning of much of the downtown traffic lights as well, so it was a bit of an adventure driving out of town!