Keith Urban at the Great Jones County Jones Fair in Iowa

I can’t believe that I have lived in Iowa 37 years and did not know about the Great Jones County Fair just 90 minutes from me!! They really don’t seem to promote it and it took a Keith show to call it to my attention. I swear it is a bigger venue than the Iowa State Fair and it was totally packed last night for Keith’s concert.

I was so happy to have company on this concert adventure!! My daughter Annie came down from Minneapolis to go along, as well as my best buddy Joan and my daughter’s friend Sara. Although the latest weather report predicted no rain, it began to shower as we drove to Monticello so we were briefly concerned. But the shower ended quickly, just dropping the temperature from 88 to a wonderful 75!! So it was a lovely and SO much more comfortable evening than Cincinnati – what a pleasure!! Although the main parking lot (on a golf course!!) was already quite packed, I was able to slip my car into an excellent spot behind another vehicle.

The Great Jones County Fair has a huge permanent stage and grandstand and offers attendees free hillside seating (see 2nd photo) for the concerts  on either side of the reserved seating. Although the “free hills”don’t have a good view of the stage, they did have extra video screens set up for these areas. We were in the 6^th row of the grandstand, which sounded pretty good. But I didn’t realize that this was behind the maybe 12 rows of season ticket holders and behind a HUGE floor area that was jam packed. My knees cannot bear the hours of standing for the Standing Room Only floor section but I had actually bought an extra SRO ticket in case I wanted to head down toward the stage for a briefer period of time. But the floor crowd was so intimidating that I was not tempted to try to battle my way towards the stage. My daughter, however, did use the ticket to go down on the floor later in the evening. She managed to be in the vicinity of the satellite stage at the right time and managed to squeeze Keith’s shoulder as he passed her. A little “Vitamin K” squeeze by proxy is not quite the same for me, but I’m glad she had fun!

Since I did not settle into the Cincinnati venue until after Dustin had begun his set, I did not see any pre-concert video screen announcements there, so tonight I was surprised to see screen messages offering pre-ordering of Keith’s new album “FUSE” at a $2 discount on his KUFuse.com website!! That’s the first I had heard of the album’s title. Once again tonight Keith said the release date would be Sept. 10.

Tonight (not suffering from heat prostration)  I was better able to pay attention to Dustin Lynch’s  set. Even though he is cute and energetic, I’m afraid that most of his music is not my cup of tea. I like his slower Cowboys and Angels and when he sings Dust on the Bottle, but most of his other numbers I could do without, especially one that sounds more like eighties dance club music.  But to each their own…

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Little Big Town, on the other hand, is just spectacular! I’m really enjoying their set and their performance style and staging has come such a long way since they last opened for Keith (how many tours ago was that? Maybe 4?)  I recall seeing them with Keith in Sarnia and Sault Ste Marie among other places back then. Here is Bring It On Home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_bjYIdBzq4

The general setlist of regular songs stayed the same tonight as it was in Cincinnati I believe. But I was amazed that almost every one of the little wishes/concerns that I had expressed after the first show had changed in this show, as if Keith was reading my reviews!!  So there were multiple times during the night when I exclaimed with pleasure “Oh they changed that!” Some of these changes may well be venue specific and may continue to vary over the summer.

1)      The center microphone was back!

2)      There was a little pointed triangular “catwalk” (4 foot?) pointing out from centerstage, adorned with lights (red lights when I noticed it, matching strips of red lights on the stage as well)

3)      Keith did go to side microphones too, but distributed his time more evenly between the right and left sides.

4)      There were cameramen located on platforms along the edge of the grandstand roof that were able to spotlight and video Keith’s movements through the crowd when he went off stage : )

5)      Keith ventured far out into the audience on both of his trips – once to the right and once to the left.

6)      Little Big Town (or “the incomparable and crazy talented Little Big Town” as Keith called them tonight) DID return to stage to sing with Keith tonight!! No. they did not do a “special” song, like they did at the awards show. They, like Dustin, came out to collaborate on one of Keith’s regular songs (You Gonna Fly). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tAbDawiypw

7)      I thought there was much more showcasing of Keith’s guitar wonder today – both sweet plucking and torrid shredding with  some major flippage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjwq9KJaVAw

Here is a better view of the surprise banjo introduction than I caught in Cincy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTVzSPeaIY
What a great way to bring out each of the band members!

After the first 4 songs (LHS, ST, ITYS and  SB ) Keith came out with a big IOWA!!!  greeting, then saying “What a hell of a night! Beautiful!! And greeted each area of the arena. He went on to say this was like the most amazing party in the world, but I didn’t quite catch his additional description that it was like the party of  Shawna Hill and Chandler Taylor(?)  or something like that. (guess I am not in the know)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g279h9SBTz0

Although I had to rely on the big video screens for my close-up views of Keith, being at a distance is a totally different perspective with its own benefits. I had a better view of the entire big screen and could see all areas that Keith traveled out to. Although before the show I had looked all around for signs of the satellite stage, somehow I had not noticed the fairly substantial satellite stage about 20 feet to my left! We had, in fact, noticed them testing sky-facing spotlights at that location early on, but did not realize that they were lighting effects for the satellite stage. So watch for those spotlights before your show!  

Somethings I newly noticed tonight may not have been new to the concert – perhaps I was just too distracted by the man himself in Cincy to pay attention to the video screen. Tonight I noticed that Even the Stars Fall For You was backed by a Disney-flavored video offering the lyrics to the song. I like the idea of seeing the lyrics to a brand new song. But my daughter (a graphic designer and professional letterpress printer) was rather appalled by the hodgepodge of fonts and layout they used and is actually going to write to Keith offering her graphic design services! : ) I too found it a little too sweet and bubbly, like it was prepared for Hannah Montana or some other pre-pubescent girl audience.

Another thing I had not noticed from watching the videoscreen coverage of Keith’s trip out to the lawn area in Cincy: the satellite stage is big enough for both Jerry and Chris, with an extra drum set, to be out there with Keith! I think Danny and Brian only stay back on stage because they have to be playing while while the rest of the guys venture to and from the distant stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0306viBVveU

Chris gave a longer drum demo after his introduction tonight and two of the guys changed up their song demos! Tonight Danny did the Rolling Stones “Start Me Up”!! : ) (I am a long time Rolling Stone fan) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD8TrQ7blX0 preceded by Keith playing a bit of that’s song distinctive opening. A bit of a surprise at an Iowa family event like the county fair, Brian had switched his song to “Your Sex Takes Me to Paradise”!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zb7kit7PmY

And a treat that I hope will be repeated and varied over the summer – while at the piano Keith gave us a bit of a cover song: REO Speedwagon’s Keep On Loving You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VZiW94xzuI  Keep It Up Keith! Maybe a different song at each show!?

A few other highlights:
Keith leading the audience before the SLY closing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69p2x0Ccsao
Out in the crowd for YLGIMS   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AQlSdyF3qQ

After Keith’s personal’fireworks’ and lighting of our fuses, the Great Jones County Fair set off fireworks over the venue after the guys left the stage providing a beautiful ending to a GREAT night!