Saturday morning I did not rush to San Antonio since the afternoon rodeo show was not until 1:30. That was a mistake! I did not anticipate a huge traffic jam at the highway exit for the A, T & T Center. We inched along oh so slowly for what seemed like forever. I followed the electronic signs above the lanes of traffic to the numbered rodeo parking lots, only to find that one after another was completely full and admitting no more cars. Finally a state patrolman told me the only lot with spots available was the off-site Gembler Road lot. So I inched my way there, parked and joined a huge line for the shuttle bus back to the Rodeo grounds. With all this delay I missed the entire afternoon rodeo except for the final bull-riding event!

I had bought a cheap seat way up in the nosebleed seats for the afternoon, but did watch with interest as the crew began to set up for the concert. Out came the portable stage to the center of the rodeo floor - a more modest size stage than what was featured at the Houston Rodeo and a stage with no fancy upper portion or background for the performers. I thought that was good because then there would be nothing but the band's equipment (amps, speakers, etc) to block one's view as the stage rotated to face each section of the arena in turn. But I got even more excited as I watched them roll out carts of folding chairs for the "Rodeo Star" down-in-the-dirt floor audience. Unlike Houston,in San Antonio they set up rows of chairs ahead of time for those with floor tickets - just 3 rows deep in most areas around the stage, so there really would be no bad seats down on the floor. Also, unlike Houston, which kept the floor folks down at one end of the arena - a good 30 feet from stage, San Antonio set up the chairs just about 10 feet from stage, encircling about 2/3 of the stage. A skinny little rope separated chairs from stage and there was little visible security (again, a contrast with Houston). It appeared they left the 10 ft gap primarily to allow Keith's camera guys to constantly run around the stage, to keeping him in view as the stage rotated. Watching all this I was so happy that I had purchased a down-in-the dirt seat for the evening show!!

The show itself was great, but an hour is way too short for us spoiled Urbanites!