Final Weekend Night Two: Allstate Arena

Day 2 - no need to wake up at the crack of dawn because the Allstate Arena in Rosemont was just 90 minutes away from Milwaukee. I took my time and stopped here and there to shop along the way since my concert buddies for this show wouldn't be available until dinner time. Happily the Allstate Arena was immediately adjacent to my hotel as well as a strip mall with multiple restaurants, so we all could park at the hotel and walk everywhere.

Although our ticket situation all worked out in the end, for a while things were dicey. I had purchased one pair of tickets in Jake's presale, then thought perhaps a second daughter might be able to make it to the Chicago show, so again used Jake's presale to buy a second pair (or so I thought). One pair was in the risers next to the stage and the other was in row 16 of the floor.

It wasn't until months later when I actually printed my TicketFast tickets a few days before the show that I discovered something had gone wrong with my purchase! There was only a single floor seat - not a pair : ( I don't know how that happened - my only guess is that I had exceeded my limit of Jake presale tickets so they just didn't fulfill the order. Disappointed, I called my daughter to let her know that it looked like one of her friends wouldn't be able to join us as planned since we were short a ticket. She told me it was okay - one friend had changed her plans so Sara had just invited her fiance Sam instead. Sara figured Sam wouldn't be crushed if he could not attend the show.

Well, browsing Monkeyville I saw a post from a Canadian Monkey advertising decent Chicago seats at regular price. I shot her an email and she replied she had had one offer but I was next in line if the deal fell through. But a few hours later she let me know the tickets had been sold. Darn!

But sometimes its a small world when it comes to us Urbanites who make it to quite a few shows. Not too much later I got an email from Tim - a Keith fan I had once sold an extra Green Bay ticket to on the streets of Green Bay and then ran into again at a Monkeyville pre-party somewhere. He had seen my attempt to buy Chicago tickets on the Monkeyville board and it turned out he had been the person who beat me to the punch. But now he was re-thinking the trip to Chicago, so offered me the seats he had bought from the Canadian gal. Yay! So I got them after all - in a roundabout way - solving our seat problem. Now that we actually had 5 tickets, Sam could join as as well as my sister! A family event! But the coincidences weren't over yet. It turned out the seats from Canada were just about the same seat numbers and immediately behind the riser seats of my original purchase!! So although we still had one lone floor seat, I decided not to go down to the floor until absolutely necessary. I thought it likely we could all hang out together in the risers at least through Jake's set. But in fact I never got chased out of the row L seat I borrowed. When It was time for Keith and the guys to come on it was clear that the riser seats across the aisle from us had not been sold (probably thought to be too close to the stage), so all 5 of us moved down about 6 rows closer to the floor in the risers beside the stage seats where we could all be together in a single row.

When Keith paused to greet the fans, he added a little emphasis to his "We made it back!", saying "Damned good to be here!" After turning his attention to each area of the arena Keith read and provided brief responses to quite a few signs. There were the usual "want to get closer" and "kiss me" selections, but also 2 separate individuals celebrating their 50th birthdays, another with best wishes for KU's upcoming birthday, and one saying that 3 generations of their family were at the show. The Canadian contingency was large so Keith noted the Canadian flag and the London, Ontario fan sign. Another sign said "Hi to the Ranch!" spurring Keith to say that Chicago had been among their earliest engagements in either 1996 or 1997. The final (winning) sign read said "Don't Put Me in a Song, Put Me On Stage!" and he did!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pyyeeYNvQQ When the gal from Gray's Lake, IL arrived on stage Keith asked her who was the crazy woman she had been with on the floor. She replied that it was her boyfriend's mother and that his mother loved Keith even more than she did. So Keith invited mom up on stage as well where she immediately got Keith in a tight clench of a hug. Keith joked about how they hadn't yet even been introduced. Apparently this was not the first time the younger gal had gotten lucky and joined Keith on stage. She mentioned that 4 years ago in Moline she had been his "Warm Wet Kiss"! Keith offered to have Danny take a photo of the three of them with with audience in the background and told the audience to "pull in a little bit" for the photo : )

Keith had fun with his big spotlight on the upper tier of seats, then told the audience that if they wanted to dance or sing or stand on their chairs and completely annoy the people behind them, this was the concert for them. He then added "If someone behind you taps you and says "Hey, sit down!" that they should reply "Hey, stand up!"

It sounded like the whole arena was singing along on Long Hot Summer! I noticed that even my son-in-law-to-be sang along to some of the songs - another good reason to welcome the sweet guy to our family!

Amazement! Here it is the next to the last show of the tour and I am still experiencing new bits in the show! Has there always been a laser light show going on at the back of the arena??Have I been so focused on the man up front that I was oblivious to the quite beautiful, brightly colored, constantly changing play of laser lights on the ceiling and riser railings during Stupid Boy and some of the other songs??? Something for everyone (or especially for those whose eyes aren't glued on KU!) I guess!

Keith did some pretty impressive picking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I805WVezQ4 before settling down for Without You. I love these little bits of guitar play featuring those amazing fingers! Since it was a riser night for me, the closest I got to Keith was during his Sweet Thing on the left platform. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQBZrrBv3k

Tonight's special treat was Keith bringing out Richard Marx for a song. Keith mentioned that he first starting writing songs with Marx six years ago and that their most recent effort was "Long Hot Summer" which just hit the #1 spot. Richard sang "Don't Mean Nothing" and, as usual, Keith hung back to let his special guest shine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggp86oNQYgg This was one point in the show where I was a bit sorry I was in the risers to the side of the stage rather than down front on the floor with a more up close view. Keith also brought Richard back out at the end of the night for another one of the #1 hits Better Life but I really didn't have a good video shot for that collaboration.

Earlier in the evening I had been telling my sister that the fans that end up on stage for Kiss A Girl give some idea of how many fans travel great distances to come to Keith's shows.

Tonight's contest included not only a guy from Indiana but also a gal who came all the way from San Francisco. The mohawked guy was quite a ham, evening kneeling at the end of the little catwalk, clasping hands with the front floor folks. He impressed Keith (who said "What the heck are they doing in Indiana?") and he won the audience's applause the night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlAhxLACuho

At the end of this wonderful show the Allstate Arena exerted more control over the audience than most arenas I have been to. They blocked those of us in the left risers from walking around the arena on the concourse to choose what door we wanted to exit from. Instead we were all forced to exit on the south side of the arena (the side facing away from the hotel, strip mall and much of the parking. Since the evening had cooled substantially it was a very chilly walk outside all the way around the arena to the other side. They also forced us to skirt around all the tour buses on our way but unfortunately there was no sign of Keith or the guys (they probably knew that their buses were captive until the circling crowds dissipated).

It was a great night sharing a concert with family!

A Special Hometown Weekend

I spent the first 25 years of my life in Chicago and still get back to visit the city I love fairly often because we still have family there. While I was in graduate school at the University of Chicago one of the few things we would splurge some of our limited student finances on were some of the wonderful professional dance performances the city offered. One of our favorite troupes back then was the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. So last fall when I saw they would be performing in Chicago in May after the school year was over I excitedly recruited my Chicago-based daughter and fellow dance fan Sara to accompany me to one of their shows. They were scheduled to perform several nights but I chose a Thursday night figuring that there might be less competition for tickets and also because it wouldn't conflict with any of Sara's weekend plans. I bought a pair of tickets when they went on sale and was happy to get floor seats in the historic Auditorium Theatre.

I arrived in town on Thursday afternoon and checked into the free hotel room hubby was able to get with some of the "Hilton points" he accumulates with his business travel. Sara, who is an engineer for a firm right at Wabash and Adams, stopped by the hotel to pick me up on her walk home from work. Before we left we stopped briefly in a 24th floor lounge in the hotel to check out their happy hour appetizers. The appetizers were nothing to write home about but the view from the 24th floor, looking out across Grant Park to Lake Michigan and the small boat harbor was fascinating. Usually looking out at Lake Michigan is almost like an ocean view since it appears to go on forever. But on this day a low hanging fog front was visibly moving in from the water. When we first arrived we could see all the sailboats moored in the harbor, but in a matter of moments they and the lake were completely gone!! And gradually the ground-level fog began to eat up Lake Shore Drive and Grant Park as it moved westward. It was a really spooky sight that I had never seen before - an almost sinister sight akin to a Steven King movie since it was happening so quickly and so completely.

We then walked the couple blocks to Sara's apartment (which I had only seen photos of up to that point) and had more amazing views of the fog rolling into town. Then she and her beau Sam took me for a wonderful dinner at The Curry House. I became an immediate fan of the Chicken Momo that Sam recommended. Momos are the Indian/Pakistani/Tibetan equivalent of Chinese dumplings. These had the shape of the more familiar potstickers but were filled with a wonderful chicken curry mixture. Yum!

The Auditorium Theatre was just a few blocks away and I needed that little walk after stuffing myself with curry and naan. Approaching the theatre, which is housed in one of the famous Chicago buildings designed by Adler and Sullivan, brought back a flood of memories - not just because of the dance performances attended there back in the day, but also because my very first teaching position had been at Roosevelt University while I was writing my dissertation.

Roosevelt University is housed in the same building as the Auditorium although it has grown quite a bit since then.

When Sara and I were led to our seats in the beautiful theatre I was totally shocked to find that we were front row center for this evening. That was not what I had expected from the seating chart! All the rows of 'pit' seats indicated in the charts had been removed for the dance performances! So we literally had the best seats in the house without even realizing it. I sat back to thoroughly enjoy the experience since it certainly would probably never happen again.

The Alvin Ailey dancers were as wondrous I had remembered. Sometimes I could not help but gasp at their amazing movements and the beautiful effects the troupe created. I enjoyed each and every dance, but particularly enjoyed the 50th year anniversary performance of their famed multi-part dance Revelations (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Fix Me Jesus)

I was so happy when my sister had offered to take Friday off of work to take advantage of my visit to Chicago. She took the Metro train into town to meet me and got us tickets for an architectural boat tour. I was a bit worried that the tour might not happen, remembering the fog of the previous afternoon. But the day dawned sunny and mild and the fog had mostly retreated in he morning. The boat tour, which went both north and south down the Chicago River, was just great. A talented architecture student provide rich narration, fully educating us about the history of buildings, the styles of architecture and some of the city's interesting architectural 'dirt'. It was so much more informative than your typical boat tour and the weather was perfect for our top-deck open-air viewing. As the boat returned to its dock, however, that spooky fog was again moving into the city, hiding successively more and more of the shoreline with each hour of the afternoon. Good thing we had planned an early boat ride!

Then a quick cab to the restaurant Judi had picked for lunch. She knows my food enthusiast, gourmet cooking, Top Chef addict ways and had selected the Frontera Grill, one of the restaurants of famous chef and cookbook author Rick Bayless. We had so much fun sampling from his upscale Mexican menu and tropical drinks. I loved my ceviche trio and chicken mole enchiladas and a wonderful mixed drink made with Mexican beer rather than hard liquor.

We both left fully sated and knew that dinner better be late tonight! We left Chicago early enough to beat most of the the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic towards her home outside the city in Cary, IL.

Saturday morning Judi and I had fun shopping before I had to head back to Iowa. No, we're not clothes shoppers like some. For us a great morning shopping involves plant nurseries and gourmet grocery stores! : ) I ended up with 2 flats full of a mix of perennials and exotic annuals, then had fun exploring and making judicious travel-able purchases at Trader Joe's and a great Italian grocery store. So my visit to old Chicago could not have been better: Precious time with amily, culture, yummy food, fun shopping and good audiobooks for the hours in the car.

Jackson Browne & David Lindley Serenade Chicago

Jackson Browne had been on my “Artists I Hope to See Live” list for quite a while, so when I saw that he would be appearing in Chicago at a lovely small venue (the Chicago Theatre on State Street) I was immediately interested. It would not be easy to get to Chicago for a Thursday night show, then back to Iowa for my Friday classes, but I was willing to try.

I tried my darnedest to arrive in the Windy City before rush hour, but it seems like there is rush hour traffic almost all the time these days. I did okay until I hit the Kennedy Expressway out by the airport, but then in took another 90 minutes to creep the remaining way downtown. I headed for the parking lot the theatre had listed as the most convenient (but which turned out not to be the most economical). I had barely walked a half block when I got a meet-up call from my daughter Sara – perfect timing!! She and beau Sam walked up State to meet me so that we could walk the 3 blocks together to the restaurant Sara had selected. It was a nice Italian spot – the Rosebud- Theatre District. Not quite as cute or authentic looking as their Naperville site, but very tasty food. We had a fun dinner together – I ate too much of the crusty Italian bread and olive oil, but at least ordered some fresh lake whitefish on a bed of steamed spinach rather than pasta. I couldn’t resist ordering a side of Rosebud’s homemade Italian sausage for us to share – it was spicy, fennel-y and great! Next time I might go straight for an Italian sausage main course. Sara and I shared a trio of Italian gelatos for dessert – my favorite was a creamy lemon.

Sam and Sara walked me back to the Theatre (Jackson Browne was “before-their-time” so I was concerting alone) and we hugged goodbye until our next adventure together.

My seat was in the second row of the first balcony. All seats in the Chicago Theatre provide a good view of the stage, but what I had not realized is that the balcony rows have no leg room at all. My old knees were not too happy about that so I will avoid the balcony in the future. The only other time I had been at this theatre (to see Keith Urban’s charity concert for St. Jude’s a couple years ago) I had an aisle seat on the main floor without a leg room problem. Of course everyone stands through Urban concerts, but that was not the case for the audience seeing Jackson. They remained polite and seated except for a few brief standing ovations on the main floor after the biggest songs. One thing the crowd was not shy about - shouting out requests. In the second half of the show every round of applause following a number was followed by shouts of song names from every part of the theatre!

The sound of Jackson Browne and David Lindley playing together for the first several songs was just lovely. Their mellow acoustic instruments just resonated through the theatre – it was entrancing. For some reason the acoustics did not seem to be as good (at least not up in the balcony) later in the show when Jackson stood at the centerstage microphone (I don’t know why), but the sound seemed better when he sat at his keyboard. In any case, every song was a pleasure. Here are a few samples from the night: 

For Everyman

Call It A Loan

Bright Baby Blues

Fountain of Sorrow

Just Say Yeah

Running on Empty

My only disappointment was the omission of The Load Out as the closing song! I was so sure it would be included since it even mentions Chicago. I waited so expectantly, so patiently - but we were not gifted with this classic. (I consoled myself later by looking up the clip of Keith singing the Load Out while his crew was actually loading out - go to 6:14 in this clip.)

        I had reserved a hotel room west of the city, partway towards Iowa, so my drive in the early morning would be shorter. Little did I know that I would be encountering yet another "rush-hour" traffic jam at midnight!! The roadcrews do a lot of work between 9 pm and 5am and they had several lanes of the Eisenhower Expressway closed. Traffic was backed up for miles so I finally got off the highway and took my chances on the inner-city streets for several miles to get around the roadwork. Drove my "GPS lady" crazy - she kept directing me back to the midnight madness on 290!

Keith Urban, Dixie Chicks and the Eagles in Chicago!

I had looked forward to the Chicago Keith Urban-Dixie Chicks-Eagles concert with eager anticipation for several reasons. I was thrilled that Keith was playing in my old hometown and anxious to re-experience some of my Eagle favorites. Add to that the opportunity to lure all three of my daughters to Chicago for a concert weekend adventure. And top it off with the chance to introduce 4 “Urban-virgins” (one sister-in-law and 3 nieces) to the wonders of Keith performing live.

We were a bit worried as we drove towards Chicago on Friday since extreme storms in the area were bringing down tree branches and causing power outages. We were willing to put up with bad driving conditions, but I knew that lightening packed rainstorms were one of the few things that could shutdown an outdoor concert, and prayed that Saturday would bring clear skies. Happily Saturday dawned with blue skies and just little cottonball bits of clouds with an expected high of 87.

My sister-in-law Pat took us to a great little Italian place (Cafe Bionda) not too far from Soldier Field for a late lunch before we headed to the stadium. Everyone ordered something different and all 10 dishes were great - I’m not going to wait for another concert to visit Cafe Bionda again!!

I thought I had done well scoring Row 23 floor seats in this gigantic venue, but I should know by now that is still pretty far back - too far to really see the performers very well. What seems like “near” was just too far so thank goodness for video screens. Well, maybe Keith would come down my aisle later......

Mr. Urban emerged at 6:00 pm sharp in a deep rosy-red plaid shirt, medium blue jeans and high spirits, hair longish, unstyled, golden and blowing in the wind very much like a half dozen years ago. Kiss a Girl kicked off his set, then Days Go By, with great singing by the audience. I was excited that, despite his limited time on stage this evening, Keith did make a trip down to the far end of the stage - MY end of the stage - for this song - my tiny bit of relatively close time during the show. (Unfortunately this was also the sunny side of the stage so the rest of my videos all night were pretty glary and washed out and others caught much better shots than I. )

And then a song I have been missing - Stupid Boy with that wonderful guitar solo echoing through that massive stadium - - goosebump-giving moments!

Keith then came out with his “How are we doing Chicago? It’s nice to be back!” He greeted each area of the audience in turn and said “We’re thrilled to be a part of the show today and want to thank the Eagles for being so cool and letting us come out and play some songs with them.”  Then he said if we knew the words we should sing along as they went on to Sweet Thing (thanks to crazy4keithurban)and then I’m In. Keith complimented the audience participation with a“Yee - haw!! Good God Almighty you sound good out there!!” 

He briefly introduced Til Summer Comes Around with a “This is a song about - well its about now actually” (since summer is finally coming around I guess). This song just sounded fantastic resounding in that big Soldier Field.

I liked that they mixed up the set and weren’t afraid to do a couple acoustic numbers in the stadium environment. Before Only You Can Love Me This Way  (thanks to crazy4keithurban) Keith wished all the fathers in the crowd a big happy Father’s Day and dedicated this song to all the lovers in the crowd tonight and all the married couples. He threw in a “And I’ll never feel the way I feel playing in Soldier Field Chicago today” at the appropriate moment. Then a stirringly emotional You’ll Think of Me - again with the stadium singing along and cheering at the very end. Here is crazy4keithurban’s video

Keith asked if the security guys were being nice to us and complained that “It looks a little orderly out there - I just want to make sure that you guys are able some serious fun, okay?” He introduced Brian and Jerry and each got to sing their little solo bits to the huge crowd. After Brian did “Open Arms” Keith joked “I was just about to get my lighter out!” (tee hee) Then Keith made a special request of the audience - that we all sing happy birthday to Nicole since her birthday was the next day. He was just a hoot doing this!! Here is CJ0267’s great clip of this.

As soon as I heard the opening riff of You Look Good in My Shirt I crossed my fingers that Keith might exit the stage on our side. But he went in the other direction : (

But that turned out well - my sister-in-law, although new to Keith Urban, jumped right into being an Urban fan and managed to high five Keith as he moved back in the stadium and followed him all the way back to the K area of the rear floor where he stopped to perform, and stood right behind him the whole time. Way to join the Urbanite Club Patti!! Of course Keith’s walk through the crowd was a huge success with the audience and even one of the beer-venders had to stop and catch it on video!!

Keith thrilled his Chicago audience by coming out in a Blackhawks shirt. He was a good sport and wore it in the heat for a while but eventually had to pull it back off to perform. Although I love Somebody Like You (thanks to crazy4keithurban) I was a little sorry to hear the opening banjo because I knew it signaled the likely end of Keith’s set. It was a great hour that went by all too quickly. All 4 of my “urban virgins” later reported that they thought Keith was the best performer of the entire evening : ) Similarly, the folks I was sitting next to - who had come “just to see the Dixie Chicks” were wowed by Keith. You can’t help but love him!

I was quite surprised when the Eagles opened with Seven Bridges Road! I loved the first hour as they performed their California-sound hits from the early seventies. You truly could “feel the love” (as Keith would say) as tens of thousands sang along to those classics. I’m not as thrilled with some of the late 70’s, early 80’s rockers featuring Joe Walsh, so their set started to feel a little too long to me later on. I was glad when they returned to their softer sounds for the encore (Desperado).

Christmas 2009

I breathed a big sigh of relief when I finished the fall semester grading for all of my students and could begin to think about Christmas shopping and decorating just eight days before the big day. We only had time for a few outdoor lights and minimalist decorating of the tree. We were so rushed and pre-occupied with last minute holiday preparations that - to our embarrassment - BOTH Jim and I completely forgot that our best friends were scheduled to take us our for our anniversary on Sunday night. When the doorbell rang,and I wiped the dishwater off my hands and answered the door, I was wide-eyed with surprise to see Andy and Joan! I was so dumbfounded that it took a full minute before I actually remembered our forgotten date. Ditzy Linda quick called Ditzy Jim at his office and did a 5 minute quick change into party clothes. We had a wonderful time with our bestest friends, but I'm beginning to think I need a "keeper" to keep me on track!! Sorry Andy and Joan!!

Happily all three daughters were able to come home for Christmas, as well as a new "guest" - Annie's new cat Warhol. A blizzard was predicted (we already had one, just a week before, dropping 12 inches of show in our area and shutting all schools and universities), so I was extra happy to have each of the girls arrive without travel mishap. I love to have everyone home where they belong!! We had fun shopping and baking ans wrapping and, eventually, un-wrapping. Jim surprised me with some premium seats and impressive travel arrangements to the Arizona Country Thunder festival where Keith will be playing!! (The only condition is that HE doesn't have to go, lol!).

We had planned to head toward Chicago the day after Christmas to go celebrate with my sister's family. But enough snow and ice had fallen in both Iowa and Illinois to make the roads un-fit for travel, so we held off a day. That turned out to be a wise decision - the roads were much improved by the 27th and we had a lovely time with Judi and her family. Unfortunately our change in travel plans meant we did miss the Rusted Root concert at the House of Blues in Chicago that I had thought would fit in our schedule. Ah well - I could tell from the news that many more Christmas travelers fared far worse than us, so I am grateful most of our plans went smoothly.

On Monday we headed down to the Chicago Loop to visit Sara's work and apartment neighborhoods. She works in the heart of downtown - in a huge building between Michigan and Adams (the origin of the famous "Route 66"!). She lives just blocks away in the South Loop Printer's Row area where my father, a print setter, worked for so many years before the advent of the computer and digital printing. We had a great dinner together at Blackie's Pub across the street with the extra added bonus of a surprise visit from cousin Jimmy, up from New Orleans for the holidays, and his friend Collin. 

After dinner we were off to see the Broadway musical "Jersey Boys". I am a long time fan of the Four Seasons and thoroughly enjoyed the exceptional musical performance of so many of their hits. I loved them all but two that really struck a chord for me that evening:

My eyes adored you
Though I never laid a hand on you,
My eyes adored you
Like a million miles away from me you couldn't see
How I adored you:
So close, so close and yet so far away

And:

You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.
You'd be like Heaven to touch.
I wanna hold you so much.
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive.
You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.

Pardon the way that I stare.
There's nothing else to compare.
The sight of you leaves me weak.
There are no words left to speak,
But if you feel like I feel,
Please let me know that it's real.
You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.

Tuesday morning Annie and I spent a few hours wandering through Chicago's Art Institute. I primarily stuck to their new Modern Wing. Then the whole family met Sara for lunch on her lunch hour before we headed back to Iowa to beat the rush hour traffic jams. It was so special to spend time in "my kinda town" - my hometown, with my family.

Keith Urban Close Up at Joe's Bar

Preface (from Wednesday afternoon) - Woo Hoo!!! My daughter Sara, who now lives and works in Chicago just won tickets to Keith Urban's private show at Joe's Bar Saturday from the downtown Verizon Store!! I screamed into the phone when she called me, I'm tickled to death and Hubby and I will make a weekend of it (as long as he doesn't have to go see Keith lol). My sister had tried to win yesterday at the Lake Zurich store but there were 150 trying for the 25 pairs of tickets so she wasn't lucky, and my brother-in-law was set to try at the Plainfield Verizon Thursday! I'm convinced my "Keith Karma", as we call it, was the result of me paying-it-forward this afternoon. I ran a contest among my 320 students this semester for 2 free tickets to see Dierks Bentley and Gloriana here in town Friday night. Not 10 minutes after I awarded the free tickets, I got the call from Sara!

Saturday - Well today was some crazy day. We couldn’t leave Iowa until Saturday morning and the special show at Joe’s Bar was scheduled for 1:00 with doors opening at noon. Being a general admission venue I just knew fans would begin lining up early, but there was nothing I could do about it. We had planned to get the first 100 miles or so out of the way late on Friday when I got home at 10:45 or 11:00. My niece Carly needed an emergency ride home from the University of Iowa to Chicagoland, So Jim and I got to Iowa City about 12:15 am, spent barely 6 hours in our hotel bed, then picked up Carly at 7:15 Saturday morning. Although I kept the pedal to the metal, Saturday traffic and roadwork meant that we didn’t drop off Carly on the southwest side of the city until 11:10 and still had to meet my daughter and get to the northside before show time. When I finally arrived and met Sara, nearly 200 people were in line in front of us (I later learned that some had been there since 8 am!!). We waited in the glorious sunshine - it was amazingly close to 70 on this 14th day of November in the Windy City!. They had put some special effort into trying to avoid the scalping of tickets to this Verizon event. Each winner had a personalized letter, with an identifying number on it. When we entered they checked Sara’s ID against the name on the letter and made sure her numbered letter matched what had been given out at the Verizon store, and only then gave us plastic Verizon VIP tags to hang around our necks. Sara’s friend had won a pair of tickets as well so we had two Urban virgins with us who would have their first Keith experience in a very intimate environment!

Joe’s Bar was set up with about 9 long tables perpendicular to the stage, each seating 16 people and a few more bar stools here and there. Those 200 people in line in front of us had more than filled all the tables, so the last 100 of us were in the standing room only area beyond the tables. I chose to stand at the end of of the center table, right in line with Keith’s microphone, so had a great view. It seems like we waited forever -apparently the meet and greet and photos with Keith that some contest winners had scored were taking longer than planned in a mezzanine area just above us. It was nearly 1:30 when our hero finally made it down to the stage, preceded by Chicago Bears Tight End Greg Olson who apparently had been at the meet and greet. Not sure if Greg is an avid Keith fan or whether they just met at Joe’s Bar (Greg was involved in a charity event there Friday night). Although, as a bar event, they had checked to make sure we were all 21 or older (ha!), I saw some extra special VIP take two little girls up to the meet and greet. Does Greg Olson have kids?

Today Keith looked very much like his photo on the Verizon posters - he was wearing almost an identical shade of plaid shirt (but short-sleeved and without a teeshirt) and was just as yummy as could be, We had been warned ahead of time not to take flash photos or shoot video or we might be removed from the event, so I was a bit nervous about using my camera. My attempts at non-flash photos were almost complete failures, so I eventually took my chances and switched to the video setting. But I didn’t want to be too obvious so I held my camera in front of my chest rather than in front of my face, so pardon if my focus is not as steady as usual!

The “brief acoustic set” of this new type of Verizon event is longer than a backstage experience performance but quite a bit shorter than the “No Frills” shows earlier this year. Apparently they had pizza available to us (kind of like a BSE) in the back room but I don’t think many people were willing to leave the spots that each had staked out to go get food (I certainly didn’t).We were treated to 5 songs and perhaps 8 or 9 “questions” from the audience. Sitting on a bar stool on stage first said that it was nice to be back in Chicago and that they had begun the tour right here (the Joe’s Bar “No Frills”) and now were ending the tour here, so had come full circle. He said he’d play a few songs and then have some time for a few probing, deeply personal, inappropriate questions - hee hee. Keith then asked what we wanted to hear and about 100 shouted out song titles. Keith sang Days Go By and then my request : ) I’m In, which was just wonderful! Then took a few “questions”. The first was more of a longish testimonial on what Keith’s music had meant in one fan’s life and a few were requests rather than true questions (Will you sign my poster, sign my license plate, take a picture with me...)( and Keith was very tolerant and obliged). (The audience was already envious of those who got him to sign things, but really were green with envy when he invited the photo requester up on stage and gave her a hug and maybe even a a little kiss on the cheek!)

But a few of the questions were interesting: “Have you written any songs for Sunday yet, and if so will you record them?” Keith said no, he hadn’t written any songs yet. He had composed a little piano piece for her, but that was it. He then was asked if he would play it. He quickly said “No, that’s personal.” but then followed it up with “Its for piano - it just wouldn’t work on guitar.” He was asked who he would most like to collaborate with in the future. Keith didn’t exactly respond to the question as asked, but did volunteer that he might be collaborating with John Mayer in 2010. Interesting! When asked if he could play with any band, which would he choose. Keith said he thought playing with the Beatles would be interesting. Another asked what were his 3 favorite songs to perform and he said that he really didn’t have favorites. Keith tried calling on a male in the crowd, but apparently the guy’s wife or girlfriend usurped the opportunity to talk to Keith! But I was happy she did because what she did was praise Keith for always thinking about his audiences and going out to the small stage to give those in the rear a bit of personal attention and how wonderful and awesome he was to do that. Another asked what was the craziest thing that ever happened on tour and what was going through his mind during it. He said that hands down it was Taylor’s prank and what was going through his mind was what the hell is going on?, who the hell are these people? when did Kiss arrive? “I actually thought it was them for a moment!”

Then a few more songs - Kiss a Girl and Jeans On (!!! I was so pleased to hear this one!!!) Keith smiled a lot and complimented our singing. And a couple more questions: When asked if he could join any band, which would he choose. Keith said he thought playing with the Beatles would be interesting. He started joking with the question asker because she had her questions written down and suddenly I realized another diehard Iowa Keith fan “Jeans-on-gal” had also managed to win a ticket to this Illinois event! We are two peas in a pod when it comes to being crazy, highly motivated Keith followers! Another gal asked if he was writing yet for a new album and he said they will just start writing in the next couple months and would probably get into the studio early next year. I waved my arm like crazy but never got to ask if there would be any arena shows next year.

Before he sang Stupid Boy Keith thanked the audience for coming out and again thanked Chicago. He said he had been coming to Chicago since the Ranch days - some 14 years and Chicago had always been good to him.

It was over way too soon - thirty five minutes after he entered the room Keith slipped out the side door. I had hardly gotten past that initial stunned gawking phase (“He’s here, he’s here”!) to the point where I could settle into and experience the music and then it was time to leave. So short and sweet and such a tease. My daughter thought she saw Keith in one of the SUVs with darkened windows outside of Joe’s as we left. I couldn't see anything but looked longingly at the SUV as it pulled away nevertheless. How will we make it to the first of the 2010 shows????

Days Go By

I'm In

Kiss a Girl

Jeans On
Stupid Boy

Keith Urban Gets Love Chicago-Style

Sorry to be a little slow posting but 2 late concert nights and 6 hours of driving from St. Paul to Chi-town left me one tired puppy last night, and then this morning we headed to Green Bay. It is past midnight again so I hope I make sense here.

The Zac Brown Band is growing on me. Besides their single hits I really like what they call their “summer song” (toes in the water, ass in the sand…) and also a song written while they were in Byron Bay (Australia) about being “free as we’ll ever be” (sorry I don’t know actual titles) into which they blended a little Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic last night. And then their reggae beat song into which they incorporate a little of Marley’s One Love. I think I will pick up one of the autographed CDs they have at the show.

Take Back the City (which signaled the start of Keith’s show out east) has been replaced by My Love Opens the Door to Your Heart the last two nights. An appropriate lyric to lead into this show, no? Allstate Arena is a little bit smaller venue with no nosebleed seats. The satellite stage only had a small amount of floor space around it and it was partially surrounded by the sound mix area fence tonight.

Tonight Keith wore dusty brown jeans and a brown plaid shirt, shirttails out, which had a metallic thread running through the plaid, so it did sparkle a little all over. His eyes looked a little tired but otherwise he looked great. Chicago just loved him to bits! The entire arena was on their feet for the whole 2+ hours, singing loudly, totally into to it. Keith reminded the crowd "The last time we were here we played a place called Joe's (cheers). Now we have a damn good Friday Illinois Night!"

Allstate Arena and its Ticketmaster seating charts are notorious for mistakes. Last tour floor section 4 was much farther back than pictured so there were quite a few people disappointed with their seats. This year section 4 was “left floor” when I bought the tickets but it became center floor last week when they suddenly changed the seating chart online! So my daughter Annie and I were in row 20 in line with the centerstage mic and catwalk. Pretty good in terms of closeness, but too many moving heads to shoot good videoclips most of the time. The debate about whether floor seats or low risers seats are better continues.

Annie is sometimes a bit timid on her own, but has been following Mom’s rather disinhibited lead during our 3 day Keith Urban Road Trip. Tonight as Better Half was being performed we slipped out of our row 20 seats and walked towards the back of the arena just as Keith was leaving the main stage. We weren’t quite quick enough to get to one of the limited spaces on the front side of the satellite stage, but we did score spots on the fence surrounding the rear of the stage, perhaps 8 feet away from Keith. We all know that the “back view” is nothing to sneeze at! : ) He did turn to face us occasionally so we were more than happy to be there. We had a close-up view of him performing Once In A Lifetime (with a bit of a special ending) and Making Memories Of Us. No sign reading tonight. When he finished on the small stage Keith turned over his guitar to his crew (which he hasn’t done before), so that he could be more closely surrounded by his body guards during the trip back to the main stage this evening. In fact they almost made a pretty tight “Keith sandwich” (body guard-Keith-body guard) to avoid some of the head grabbing of last evening. Because of that his return to the stage was much faster than yesterday.

I don’t think I have mentioned that Keith has incorporated, in the production, a couple of links, if you will, to the LPATWCT tour. We see a colorful silhouetted fiddler (Brad?) on the video screens (a la Shine) towards the end of If Ever I Could Love and then we see the large “cracked” heart of LPATWCT, in red this year, during the “a beating, braver heart” lyrics of that song. These spark a special familiarity and recollection of other wonderful concert nights in those who enjoyed the previous tour.

When it is time for Raining on Sunday Keith gave us some really lovely, new melodic guitar play and then, again, a very percussive intro to ROS as he walks down the catwalk. But then he begins improvising a sweet little song for us:

Are we in a singing mood Chicago?
Are we feeling good Chicago?
It feels real good to be here with you on a Friday night.
At the Allstate Arena everybody’s looking good and I’m feelin’ alright
I’m kinda making this up as I go along
But I gotta good feeling that with you there’s no way I can go wrong!

(and that last line is really the truth in Chicago!) I guess he could feel the love the crowd was radiating.What a treat!

The after show interactions with the audience have gotten longer this week (although not as long as last year). Keith goes from the center catwalk to each of the side platforms, bowing, saluting and thanking the audience, slaps hands along the stage edge and small catwalk, signs a couple autographs. The guys toss out picks, wristbands and drum sticks. And then they are off. I can only imagine that Keith must collapse once he winds down a little with all the incredible energy and stenuous physical work that he puts in the show.“Cardiovascularly challenging” was how he put it, but it is so much more than that! Even I collapse (but then I have very sweet dreams!).

Chicago! Chicago!

I always enjoy traveling back to Chicago, even if I have lost some of the tolerance for city traffic that I had while growing up there. This weekend was a “girls’ roadtrip” – my oldest daughter came in from Ann Arbor, my middle daughter drove up from Champaign-Urbana and my youngest and I came from Iowa so all of us could rendezvous in Chi-town. We stayed in a fun and funky Lincoln Park neighborhood rather than a big downtown hotel and had our own little slumber party!

On Saturday we lunched at Giordano’s, then headed for the stadium early because we were unsure how fast parking would fill up. Loads of tailgaters had beat us there but the non-tailgating lots were still empty. The partiers got sprinkled on a bit but the light showers ended an hour or so before concert time. We caught 99.5’s free Jake Owen pre-concert (fun!) and got us some cute “I (heart) Keith” and “I (heart) Kenny” hand-fans that a local bank was distributing (and they came in handy as the weather turned warm and sunny!).

The fan club presale graced me with 16^th row tickets this time. We sizzled a bit in the sun during the first few acts (lots of sunburn victims I bet). Today the speaker units once again blocked the second half of the catwalk for performers other than Kenny. Gary Allen was great – I am liking him more and more and he’s getting some good singing from the audience. Leann did her whole energy-packed show barefoot again today – even though the runways weren’t damp. Seemed to fit the casual “first day of summer” atmosphere of the concert. She really wowed us again with her vocals and I heard others around me saying that they hoped she’d put her Joplin song on a future album. She was wearing another “might as well be naked” silky top which really kept the attention of the males in the audience.

Keith’s video wall was back today and it was really quite impressive watching the 2 halves glide into place from either side of the stage during the break before Keith’s performance. The wall (and, necessarily, Chris M.’s drums) were positioned closer to the edge of the stage than usual, making the screen look even bigger. From my angle I could see Keith’s screen was 8-10 feet taller than Kenny’s screen behind it. An unusual treat during set-up today was a camera which panned the stadium crowd in vivid color on Keith’s big screen (and everyone reacting with waves and other antics). An even bigger treat was a new video opening to Keith’s set!!! In black and white halftones we first saw the silhouette (a little bit like the opening of OIAL in concert) of Keith a long way down a winding country road (a bit like the road in the YTOM video). And then Keith walks towards us, growing larger on the video screen, until all we can see is that sexy smiling Keith, walking with his guitar. I wish I had known something new was coming so I could have captured it!!

The man was stunningly gorgeous last night. The natural light just brings out Keith in living colors like no spotlight can ever manage. The rosy red of his teeshirt with an image of a Native American chief, the bright blue of his sparkling eyes, the lighter blond highlights in his hair, the warm tones of his tanned skin. It was all I could do to muffle an inappropriate moan when he first came out on stage. He was also wearing what I think are old favorite jeans – light blue with white worn, torn spots on all the pocket edges and the knees, and the flaps with buttons on the back pockets. So comfy but fine looking!! And a belt with kind of silvery filigree design rather than just studs.

Keith was in high spirits, thrilled to be playing in Soldier Field and so happy (as we discovered later) to have Nicole there with him. He included references to Chicago and Soldier Field in several songs and reminisced about playing at the Whiskey River in 1997. At the appropriate moment in Better Half the camera showed Nicole sitting just offstage on the right, looking lovely in a floral dress with spaghetti straps – large print on the bodice and fine print on the flowing skirt. Keith often looked to that side when he was singing center stage. When he came out on the catwalk for ROS, he said that before he sang the next song he wanted to ask a favor of us. Since Nicole’s birthday was Friday, he thought it would be nice to have 50,000 people sing her Happy Birthday! So he led us in song and the camera caught some cute shots of her blushing and covering her face with her hands in embarrassed delight backstage. Very sweet!

Keith was totally ambushed by dozens of clinging, hugging, kissing fans during his YLGIMS walk into the audience. He almost did not make it back to stage! Security had to pry some ladies off of him and the camera couldn’t even keep track of Keith in the crowd of fans as he struggled back towards the stage. I could not see how he got back up there – seemed like he re-appeared from behind the video wall, somewhat breathless, hair mussed by all those grabbing hands.

Keith again had the guys do their solos during introductions. Looks like Brad has somewhat tamed his wild hair with a new haircut. Brian’s hair is getting longer. Chris R. sang “Hot Blooded” last night. Keith and Brian did their great lyrical guitar duo towards the end of Better Half. Keith did a quite emotional performance of YTOM – not just at the end of the song either. He sang the verses so intensely that I thought he might start to cry.

I think the gal sitting next to me might be a new convert. She had never seen or heard Keith before but was all “Wow! He’s GOOD!” at the end and said she would certainly be checking out his albums. SLY was back as the closing song tonight. Keith both jumped and circled on the catwalk at the end and then jumped all the way back to the stage. He played so vigorously during the song that his guitar seemed to knock his wallet-chain loose, so he finished the song with the chain swinging free with every his every movement.

Yay – Kenny and Keith did their duet again tonight and seemed more at ease and playful during it. Especially Kenny – he is just so tickled to have Keith out there. Keith came out in a fresh baby blue tee shirt with an image I can’t recall (I’m afraid I was looking at him and not the design!). The two of them got the whole audience singing along with Take It To The Limit.

Kenny was cute last night – he brought his dad and uncle up on stage to introduce them! Kenny said they had gone to the Cubs/Sox game at Wrigley Field that afternoon.