Category: Concerts (Page 2 of 3)

3/31/17

Pam and I went to see Eric Church play in Staples last night as part of his Holdin’ My Own Tour, and afterwards all we could say was, “Hallelujah!”  He put on a spectacular show, opening with a cover of the late Leonard Cohen’s iconic song.  He delivered a haunting tribute to the artist by playing the song in the dark, while a spotlight illuminated an empty circular area of the stage.  The effect was as reverential as it was emotional.

Eric Church is not easy to pigeonhole.  He is country, yet he isn’t.  He is hard rock, yet he isn’t.  He is bluesy, yet he isn’t.  He is gritty, yet he isn’t.  He is sappy, yet he isn’t.  He is modern, yet he isn’t.  He is pop, yet he isn’t.  He is outlaw, yet he isn’t.  He is southern rock, yet he isn’t.  This makes some sense, as his musical influences range from Hank, Jr. and Merle Haggard to Metallica and AC/DC.  After his performance last night, we decided he is just damn good and do not care if he is genre conflicted.

Eric Church did not have an opening act.  He played for about three hours, singing over 30 songs, and taking a 20 minute intermission.  He also took a few breaks to down some Jack Daniels, which he clearly enjoys.  I guess when one of your songs is titled Jack Daniels you might have a propensity for drinking it on stage.

We loved it that he did not have an opening act.  Very few artists play a show without one.  A show like that is reserved for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, who defines the standard by which I measure all other live performances.  And Eric Church’s performance ranked right up near the top.  As one of his hit songs is named Springsteen, it should not have come as a surprise that he would emulate the Boss, and deliver a marathon concert.

Vocally, he was off the charts, demonstrating over and over again just how good he sounds live.  He had total command of the stage, which was starkly minimalistic in its decoration, enabling us to focus on his music.  He swaggered.  He screamed.  He showed passion and emotion.  He communicated and connected with the audience.  It was obvious when he was pumped up, and he inspired the audience to echo his energy.  He even challenged us to hang with him all night, as he was giving it his all and he expected us to do so as well.  Eric Church exemplifies why Pam and I go to see shows.  No record ever recorded and no video ever produced can duplicate the euphoric feelings evoked by attending a live show, and last night we saw a great one.  Just like Bruce, Eric Church’s recorded music pales when compared to seeing and listening to it live.

With a 30+ song set list, the show included most, if not all, of his great songs, including Mistress Named Music, Drink In My Hand, Mr. Misunderstood, Like a Wrecking Ball, Smoke a Little Smoke, Pledge Allegiance to the Hag, Record Year, Kill a Word, Three Year Old, and Springsteen, just to list several of them.  He also covered I Love LA, the Randy Newman song, to pay tribute to the Los Angeles audience.  Some of his best moments where when he was singing with only his acoustic guitar keeping him company.  When his band was playing, they were seriously good, and he sounded great with them.  His sound mixers did a great job balancing the vocals and the other instruments to yield a near perfect concert experience.  Adding to our enjoyment was Joanna Cotton, a backup singer who provided a seriously gritty and soulful delta dimension to several of the songs.

As we decided to buy the Eric Church tickets months ago and as we did so at my urging, I knew I would not need tequila or doughnuts before the show to induce me to see it.  After seeing it, my only quandary was whether I would have to drink some Jack Daniels as a toast to him before we see him again.  And we will see him again.

2/14/17

Pam and I, along with our friends Stuart and Marla, spent Valentine’s Day night listening to Brandy Clark at the Troubadour.  Brandy Clark is a great singer songwriter.  While her non-pop, non-mainstream themes do not always lend themselves to broad audience appeal, we think she is great.  Her sophomore CD, Big Day in a Small Town, earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album, as did her first album, 12 Stories.  This was the fourth time all of us were going to listen to her.  We knew with absolute certainty that this would be a big night in a big town.

As I have written about before, we love listening to Brandy Clark.  We first heard her when she opened for Jennifer Nettles at The Wiltern a couple of years ago.  At that time, she blew us away with her performance and we became instant fans.  I have a habit of buying CDs from artists playing in small venues.  I have bought them in bars from Nashville to Wailea.  I have bought them in outdoor malls.  I have bought them in small venues, including The El Rey, The Wiltern, and The Bluebird Cafe.  I recognize it is somewhat of a sickness, but I do it anyway.  Pam laughs at me for it, mainly because I usually do not ever listen to the CDs after I bring them home.  Not so with the CD I bought from Brandy Clark after her performance at The Wiltern.  I listened to that one.  A lot.

The only real question on Valentine’s Day was whether she would be playing acoustic guitar with some acoustic accompaniment or whether she would have her band.  Personally, I was hoping for the fully acoustic show without her band.  In my opinion, Brandy Clark has the perfect voice for playing acoustic country or acoustic anything for that matter.  To my mostly untrained ears she never misses a note.  Her voice is sweet and light, with just a perfect amount of twang to make her eminently listenable.  Anything, like a band, that takes away from her vocal delivery would just detract from the show.  We saw her at the Hotel Café a year or so ago, and she put on an acoustic show. It was off the charts good, and I was hoping for a repeat performance.  She did not disappoint.

Brandy Clark has a unique gift for bringing interesting characters to life in her songs.  Some songs are poignant character studies of downtrodden souls.  Others are slightly off color comedies, with interesting twists.  Others are slightly inane.  Others are noir stories of failed loves.  Others are just plain wicked, such as “Daughter,” one of the best, if not most amusing, revenge songs I have ever heard.  Her lyrics are fun and thought provoking.  Her melodies are pleasing.  All are great to listen to.  And listen we did.

She played acoustically for about an hour and a half, working thru a setlist that included songs from both of her albums and a few covers.  Her performance was flawless.  It WAS A BIG NIGHT IN A BIG TOWN for us.  The highlight of the show for me was her cover of Linda Ronstadt’s, “Blue Bayou.”  It is interesting how much you can learn about an artist when they cover a well known song.  Over the years I have heard many great covers.  Bruce Springsteen is a master at covering songs.  Recently, Pam and I marveled over Zac Brown’s cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” when we saw him at the Hollywood Bowl.  I would rank Brandy Clark’s cover of “Blue Bayou” right up there with any of the best covers I have heard.

We spent Valentine’s Day with Brandy Clark.  I hope we get to do it again.

1/27/17

The Troubadour.  The Troubadour.  The Troubadour.  One of the most iconic small concert venues in Los Angeles.  Located just east of Beverly Hills in West Hollywood, this tiny venue has had huge acts grace its stage for over 50 years.  Pam was one of the lucky few who saw Carol King and James Taylor play there in 1970.  She was even luckier because the Troubadour still had tables then.

We decided to go see Cody Jinks play at the Troubadour.  It was a spontaneous decision, made because we listened to one of his songs based on a random Facebook post.  We liked the song, and we decided to roll the dice and see him perform.  Given our steady diet of big, pop country acts last year, I was excited to see some grittier, singer songwriters that do not rely on staging and gimmicks to put on a show.

Going to the Troubadour is always an adventure.  If you want to stand, which we do not, it is easy.  Just park and walk in.  Of course, you will have to stand for the entire show, something we do not cherish.  The venue has a few rows of seating on the second floor.  These seats fill up fast.  So Pam and I got to the venue an hour before the doors opend and stood in line.  As the old Fram Oil Filter television commercial went, “Pay me now or pay me later.”

Anyway, the show was very good. The opening act, Ward Davis was great.  He had a Chris Stapleton look and sound, meaning he brought tons of soul to his folk country songs.  He has spent years in Nashville singing in relative obscurity.  So long in fact that his first full length album  is titled, 15 Years in a 10-Year Town.  He was easy to listen to, and we really enjoyed his performance.

The second act, Paul Cauthen, was a little more difficult to appreciate.  It was not his music, which was a strangely hypnotic combination of Christian, gospel and rockabilly, as much as it was his delivery.  At times it felt like he was channeling strange spirits as he sang.  I found myself shutting my eyes to avoid the visual onslaught.  He has a HUGE baritone voice that would fill Staples Center without a microphone.  Consequently, he had no trouble filling he Troubadour with his unique blend of high-octane, operatic sounds.

Cody Jinks has finally found his voice.  After years touring with a metal band, he morphed into an outlaw country and then a more or less mainstream country artist.  Of course, he hails from Texas, home to the best outlaw country in the tradition of Willie, Waylon, Robert Earl, Jerry Jeff, Jimmy Dale, etc.  He and his band put on a great show.  They were easy to listen to, even if we had never heard most of their songs.  Given that he has toured extensively before, he was able to deliver a well mixed sound that Pam and I really enjoyed.  We would definitely see him again.

12/8/16

Pam and I went to the Wiltern to see Kelsea Ballerini Thursday night.  We really like to see shows at the Wiltern, as it is a reasonably intimate venue, seating about 2,200 people.  With its small size, Pam and I feel comfortable sitting in the balcony to watch performances, as the sound system and acoustics are good and the view is fine.

Kelsea Ballerini is a young artist in every sense of the word.  She is in her early 20s, and this is her first tour as the headliner.  This was the first time we saw her perform live.  We tried to get tickets to see her last year when she performed at the Troubador, an iconic, but tiny, 500 person venue on the West Hollywood and Beverly Hills border, but it was sold out.  So we were happy to see that she was coming back to Los Angeles, and Pam purchased our seats as soon as they became available.  In the months leading up to the show, Pam and I had questions about the playlist, as the show was being billed as a holiday show.  We both had assumed it would be a regular concert with maybe a holiday song or two in the mix.  We were wrong.  It must have been billed as a holiday show because it was near the holidays, not because she played any holiday music, which she didn’t and which was just fine as far as Pam was concerned, as she is not the most ardent of holiday music fans.

The opening act, Morgan Evans, was very good.  He walked on stage with an acoustic guitar and just took control.  Many people eschew opening acts, as opening acts are like Forest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates:  You never know what you are going to get.  On Thursday night we got a good one.  Playing acoustic guitar accompanied by a loop pedal, Morgan was able to create interesting musical combinations of drum beats, background vocals, and rhythmic guitar chords as he built into each of his songs.  He has a great voice and was unbelievably comfortable in front of an audience.  He is an Aussie, which amazed us, as he didn’t sound Aussie when he was singing.  This should have come as no surprise, as there are many Aussies who sing country music and do not sound Aussi at all.  It obviously helped him, though, as he was great as he covered a Keith Urban song.  At one point in the show he stated that his job was to warm the audience up for Kelsea, and he did his job rather well.  We would enjoy seeing him again.

Kelsea Ballerini took the stage a little while later.  She made a dramatic entrance from a door strategically positioned in the middle of the stage.  It was a sign that she has spent a lot of time developing her performance style and persona.  Her showmanship and stage presence are spot on.  She should spend a little more time with her sound board, though.  LIke many young artists who have had hits on the radio but have not toured extensively, her team does not mix her songs well as she performs them live.  In her case the mix was not far off, but the drums and guitars did overwhelm her vocals on several of the songs.  In addition, she came across as screaming instead of singing on a few numbers.  This is really unfortunate, as she has a great voice and is an excellent live singer.  As usual, the highlight of the show for me was the portion of the show where she sat on a stool and played acoustic guitar.  During that time she covered “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton, arguably a very difficult undertaking, but one she pulled off with absolute perfection.  I love Chris Stapleton’s version, but, if pressed hard enough, I would probably say I liked her version a tad better.  She was just that good.

She has released one album and is working on a second.  She played some songs off the new album, and we enjoyed them.  She played many songs off her first album, The First Time.  All were good, but I especially enjoyed two of her more popular songs, “Peter Pan” and “Dibs.”  In total, she played about an hour, which was just about right.

She is very comfortable performing in front of an audience.  During the show, she was very interactive with the crowd and very thankful to be in LA.  At the beginning of her encore, she actually played right among the fans sitting in the orchestra.  She is a great talent, and we look forward to hearing more from her in the future.

10/20/16

OH.     MY.     GOD.     Thank you, Keith Urban.

On Thursday night, Pam and I saw Keith Urban perform during his Los Angeles stop as part of the Ripcord tour.  On the day after the show when my coworkers asked about it, I honestly answered,  “It was life changing.”

Pam and I love to see live music, and we are lucky that we have the opportunity to see lots of great shows.  All hyperbole aside, Keith Urban’s  show Thursday night, including opening acts Maren Morris and Brett Eldredge, was one of the best shows we have ever seen.  When the tour was announced, we knew we had to go, each for different reasons.  We had seen him in concert once before, a little over six years ago when he performed at the UCLA Tennis Center.  At that time, Pam was not really into country, but she loved the show anyway, though it may have had more to do with his arms and overall appearance than his music.  I enjoyed that show and enjoyed his performance, but I did not feel a strong emotional connection to his music.

I wanted to see Keith Urban, but my main motivation for going was Maren Morris.  I was more than willing to buy the tickets to hear her perform “My Church” live, even if that was the only song I heard the entire show.  I connected with that song the first time I heard it.  It was love at first hearing.  I was coming down Beverly Glen, one of the  canyon roads in West Los Angeles, after driving for several hours with my Porsche buddies all over the twisting back roads of Malibu.  I noticed that my trip odometer had just hit 100 miles for the day, and I noticed that my thermometer was showing an outside temperature of 100 degrees.  Thinking to myself that “100 Miles of Fun, 100 Degrees of Sun” would make a great title for something, I stopped the car on a side street so I could take a picture of my dashboard to document it.  Just as I took the shot, “My Church” came on the radio.  I loved the overall sound, her voice, and the lyrics, especially the lyrics.  There I was sitting in my Porsche after driving 100 miles for fun, and Maren Morris was singing about getting holy redemption when she puts her car in drive.  My jaw dropped.  I couldn’t believe it.  She had expressed exactly how I felt on a daily basis.  I was hooked.

As usual, Pam bought the tickets.  She was a little miffed about the seats, as they were a little worse than we usually get, putting us at the back of the arena on the first level, giving her a less than perfect view of those arms.  From the time she bought the seats and through all the shows we saw before Thursday night, she groused about how her view would be less than ideal.  By the end of the concert, she had had such a good time that I do not think she  cared that she did not have a bird’s eye view of those arms.

The show was great from start to finish.  Maren Morris came out and performed very well.  We enjoyed listening to all her songs, and she made my night when she strapped on an acoustic guitar for her final song, “My Church.”  I loved it, as did Pam.  At that time, I felt “My Church” would be the best song of the night.  A little while later I learned just how wrong I was.

Though we had heard Brett Eldredge’s music on the radio, neither of us had much of a feel for it.  By the end of his set, we  had changed our views.  We thoroughly enjoyed his voice, especially when he sang in the higher registers, as we both felt he was a little off on the lower ones.  Speaking of lower tones, we were subjected more of that body shaking, chest reverberating, teeth clenching bass so prevalent in modern country at the outset of his set, the kind of bass that causes a vibration that works its way up from your feet and legs through your torso before stopping in your head, making you want to scream in frustration.  That much bass has no place in country music, or any music for that matter.  Having said that, as the show progressed and he sang his other songs, the driving bass lessened and we enjoyed him much more.

I use the tequila and doughnut scale to determine what it will take me to see an artist perform, either the first time or subsequent times.  The absence of requiring tequila or doughnuts gives me an easy way to express threshold levels of enjoyment, but it fails miserably when I try to describe just how good I perceive a performer to be.  For that I use the Bruuuuuuuuce scale.  In the umpteen times I have seen Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band over the past 40 years, I have experienced them put on many special shows.  Experiencing him sing his songs live is so much better than hearing the recorded versions.  In my mind, Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential rock star.  Bruce has always been the finest live performer I have ever seen.  His shows have always been masterpieces.

Some shows are special.  Some artists are special.  Some crowds are special.  Thursday night Keith Urban was special.  Until Thursday night at Staples, I had never experienced a show in which a performer came close to matching any of my experiences at a Bruce Springsteen concert.  That changed on Thursday night.  Until Thursday night, listening to Keith Urban’s songs on the radio had been fine, but nothing special.  His songs have always been pleasant, well produced and enjoyable, though they have never been compelling.  On Thursday night that changed, too.  I will never be able to listen to his songs the same way again.  Apparently, all I needed to do to connect, really connect, with a Keith Urban song was to experience him perform it live.  Either he has improved tremendously as an artist or I was just really dense when I saw him six years ago because I did not have this reaction then.

I don’t know if the show Thursday night was just a great show or if that is just how good he performs on a consistent basis.  It doesn’t matter.  His performance was outstanding.  Every song was spot on.  His musicianship was unparalleled, as he just shredded his way through each song on a variety of stringed instruments.  His energy was off the charts.  His interactions with the crowd were real and did not feel choreographed.  It looked, felt and sounded like he was having fun, really pouring his heart and soul into the show.  Pam felt it and was into it.  I felt it and was into it.  The crowd felt it and was into it.  The band felt it and was into it.  The ushers felt it and were into it.  For all I know even the people working in the food stands felt it and were into it.  If they weren’t, they should have been.  The overall effect was synergistic, where the total was so much greater that the sum of the parts that I just stood there listening in awe.

Keith Urban may wear the mantle of a country singer, but in reality he is a rock star.  And, after Thursday night, I rank him right up there with Bruce.   After Thursday night, I will never need tequila or doughnuts to entice me to see Keith Urban perform.  I would even consider buying tequila and doughnuts for him just to be allowed to buy a ticket, as on Thursday night Pam and I became true Keith Urban fans for life.

10/10/16

Pam and I went to see the Dixie Chicks at the Hollywood Bowl.  I had never seen them live before.  Neither had Pam.  Of course, Pam was not into Country music when they essentially stopped touring about a decade ago after intense criticism of their somewhat prophetic, and shockingly tame, anti-Iraq war sentiment in 2003.  The result of expressing that sentiment was an absolute shit storm.  The consequences of which were their banishment from Country Radio, their creation of a genre neutral masterpiece of an album titled Taking The Long Way in response, their loss of a fan base, and ultimately, their retreat from touring.  When Pam noticed that they were going to play at the Bowl this year, there was no doubt in my mind that we were going.

The Dixie Chicks sound has always been somewhat unique.  With roots in bluegrass, they have morphed into contemporary country, alternative country, and pop.  Irrespective of the genre, the Dixie Chicks are led by an amazing trio of women musicians who excel at playing many stringed instruments, ranging from the acoustic guitar to the fiddle and viola to the banjo and dobro, an inverted single cone resonator guitar.  While Natalie Maines, their lead singer, is a rare talent, the group’s overall sound is boosted by the harmonies of the two sisters, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, who complete the trio.  As we listened to them at the Bowl, we were transfixed.  The show we saw was the 70th, and final, show of their tour.  Despite being at the back end of the tour, or may be because of it, once they took the stage, we were treated to a perfect night.

The opening act, Elle King, was a conundrum to me.  Elle King has a tremendous voice when she chooses to use it in a less in your face, I’m tougher than the rest, sort of way.  It is light and sweet, and in my opinion, should be used to sing ballads accompanied by an acoustic guitar.  There were several moments during her set when she did that, usually in the opening notes and lyrics of a song.  At those times, I was an Elle King fan.  Unfortunately for me, those moments were few and far between.  The other moments were filled with poorly mixed, over sung sounds that ranged from tolerable to awful.  It really didn’t help that her fairly low voice meshed almost perfectly with the drum beats and bass notes, making her lyrics impossible to decipher.  If that was not bad enough, she had the temerity to make a partial parody of “Landslide” when she teamed with the Dixie Chicks to cover the Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac classic.  I have an offbeat sense of humor so I can understand wanting to play around with lyrics now and then, but certain songs are sacred and should not be f***ed with.  Landslide is one of those songs.  In addition, to my ears, her vocals did not mesh well with Natalie Maines.  I am not sure why the Dixie Chicks selected her to tour with them.  Maybe it was her non-mainstream, outlaw persona that endeared her to them.  Maybe they saw something in her I did’t.  Either way, I have no immediate plans to see one of her shows again.  If I do see her again, I may require more Tequila and doughnuts than I can safely consume.

Part of the allure of the Dixie Chicks show was that they played well known songs, making the show a great big party.  Sure they added a few unexpected covers of songs by Dylan, Beyoncé, yes Beyoncé, Patty Griffin, Ben Harper, and, of course, Fleetwood Mac.  In addition, I thoroughly enjoyed the bluegrass instrumental version of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On it),” another Beyoncé song.  But the majority of the show was a trip down memory lane for me.  There were no highs and lows, just one flawless song after another.  Shockingly, there was one costume change, albeit a simple one, after which Natalie proclaimed that this was the first tour with a costume change in their history.  If pressed, I would say I liked the acoustic series of songs when they played seated and informally interacted with the crowd the best, but  “Sin Wagon'” “Goodbye Earl,” “Ready To Run,” “Wide Open Spaces” and “Cowboy Take Me Away” were show stoppers, making any ranking close to impossible.

My only complaint was that everyone was so into the show, I had to stand just about the whole time, arguably not a serious complaint.  I have seen a lot of shows this year and this one ranks right up there as one of the best.  I would never need either Tequila nor doughnuts to see them again.  I just hope I do not have to wait a decade to do so.

9/23/16

Kick.  The.  Dust.  Up.  Pam and I went to see Luke Bryan at the Forum.  Luke Bryan is another of the modern country performers that we had never seen.  It’s not that we do not like modern country, with its genre blending R&B and Hip Hop influences, it’s just that we prefer the last generation of country stars like Alan Jackson and George Strait, guys who wore cowboy hats instead of baseball hats facing backwards and played music with more traditional country influences like slide guitars, steel guitars and fiddles instead of ear splitting bass drums and driving beats.

When Pam asked me about seeing Luke Bryan, she mentioned two things that grabbed my attention.  The show would be in the Forum and one of the opening acts would be Little Big Town.  I love the remodeled Forum.  I love its intimate size and awesome acoustics.  I love Little Big Town.  I do not know all of their music, but ever since I heard Karen Fairchild sing Girl Crush the first time on the radio,  I have been hooked for life.  In fact, Girl Crush, with its stripped down sound and twistedly unique lyrics, may be one of my top ten favorite songs.

I was aware of Luke Bryan.  No country music fan could not be.  He has been a top star for almost ten years, having released several albums and having earned a whole roomful of awards.  I knew his music, though I have never purchased any of his songs, most likely because they contain sophomoric themes and lyrics that do not inspire me.  I mean no self-respecting, well educated, sixty something professional living in West LA can really get inspired by lyrics like Country girl shake it for me, Kick the dust up, Huntin, fishin, lovin every day or Rain makes corn, Corn makes whiskey, Whiskey makes my baby feel a little frisky.  I do not mean to imply that his songs are not well written, they are just a little too poppy for me.  If I had my way, I would only listen to the county outlaws like Billy Joe Shaver, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and David Allan Coe, with a generous dose of folky Americana singers like Robert Earl Keen, Joe Ely, The Old 97s and Pat Green thrown into the mix.  But those guys are either too old to sing any more  or they don’t come to LA very often.  So if I want to see country music, I have to embrace change and listen to the current country stars.

Pam and I arrived at The Forum just as the opening act, Dustin Lynch, was about to start.  I knew we were in for a loud night when the pre-show music was playing so loud it hurt my ears.  Dustin Lynch is not a big country star, but he has some great songs, including Cowboys and Angels, Small Town Boy Like Me, She Wants a Cowboy, and Seein’ Red.  Modern songs that still sound country.  And then there is She Cranks My Tractor with lyrics that rival those of Sugar, Sugar by the Archies.  Despite the sparse crowd, Dustin played a high energy opening set.  At times, though, I had to put my finger in my ear, it was just so damn loud.  His performance has made fans out of Pam and me, even if he did look a little like Justin Bieber in a cowboy hat.

Little Big Town was the second act, and they were amazing.  The quartet of lead singers, two male and two female, evoke memories of the Mamas and the Papas and Fleetwood Mac.  And just like the Mamas and the Papas had Cass Elliot and Fleetwood Mac had Stevie Nicks, Little Big Town has Karen Fairchild, a gifted singer who blends in yet at the same time defines the group.  Little Big Town is just fun to listen to.  They are all musically amazing, and they did a great job delivering great songs, including Day Drinking, Pontoon, Little White Church, Boondocks, and The Chain, a Fleetwood Mac cover.  Frankly, I heard and loved all those songs, but my interest soared once the first notes of Girl Crush filled the Forum.  Girl Crush is a simple song musically.  The instruments provide background sound at best.  The song works because of the quality of its lead singer, Karen Fairchild.  And she delivered the other night.  I cannot tolerate singers that can only produce quality songs in the studio.  The real test for me, is how they sound live.  Karen Fairchild did not disappoint.  She was amazing.

Then it was Luke time.  As far as I was concerned, my night was already complete, so I really did not care if Luke Bryan put on a mediocre show or a great show.  I was blown away, though, because Luke Bryan put on a great show.  I mean a really great show.  He was incredibly entertaining.  He was unbelievably fun to watch.  He sounded great.  His songs are party songs, and he threw a great party.  He swiveled his hips.  Let me repeat that.  He swiveled his hips.  Not in a sexual way like Elvis, but, as Pam put it, in a teddy bear you want to cuddle sort of way.  I interpreted that to be like Ted, the Seth Macfarlane character, though I doubt that is what she had in mind.  And boy, did the women in the audience want to cuddle, and they outnumbered the men by a substantial margin.  He sang for about two hours, and much to my chagrin, I spent most of that time standing.  I really had no choice, as everyone around me was standing and every woman was dancing, including Pam.  Of course everyone was singing, too.  Even the guys.  I learned that Luke Bryan can sing ballads.  His mostly acoustic version of Drink A Beer, an homage to loved ones that have passed away, was my favorite song of his set.

I became a real Luke Bryan fan that night.  So did Pam.  We can’t wait to see him again.

9/14/16

Pam and I went to see the Carrie Underwood show at Staples Center.  We were not alone.  Our good friends, John and Kris, were going with us, well sort of.  We drove together and texted throughout the latter two thirds of the show, as they ate dinner instead of seeing the opening act plus half of the second act.

Thankfully, the show started right at seven.  Pam and I found it somewhat interestingly disconcerting that the sounds playing in the arena before the concert started were from a live DJ instead of the usual canned background music.  We might have liked it better if he spun country songs instead of rap and hip hop.  So we were really ready for the opening act, the Swon Brothers, an act we had seen on The Voice and liked.  Overall, the Swon Brothers did an okay job.  It is obvious that they are not experienced performers, but that was not really an issue for us.  The real issue was the sound.  It was not mixed properly and the vocals were drowned out by the remainder of the instruments.  If I wanted to hear an instrumental, I would listen to jazz or classical music, but this is country, and the lyrics are what it’s about.  The other issue, which had less of an impact, was the staging for Carrie Underwood.  Instead of the traditional stage running across one of the small ends of an arena, the staging for Carrie Underwood ran the length of the arena floor, meaning the stage was about as long as a basketball court.  To make it more interesting for the fans, the band plays within a circle that revolves giving a front on view to all seats for some period of time.  This staging does provide for more fans to get a better view of the performers, but you need to have a big enough band and be on stage long enough to take advantage of it.  The Swon Brothers looked like they were victims of a shipwreck huddling on a lifeboat floundering in a big sea.  They were just lost.  Mercifully, they played a short set.  Pam and I would most likely see them again, but not anytime soon.

The second act was Easton Corbin.  Pam and I really enjoy listening to him, having seen him open for Phil Vassar at the Disney Concert Hall a couple of years ago.  That was the first time, I truly appreciated the vaunted acoustics in the Disney venue.  He put on a great show then, and he put on a great show the other night, singing Roll With It, A Little More Country Than That, Lovin’ You is Fun, and several others.  John and Kris arrived at the arena at the exact time he was covering Love Yourself, a Justin Bieber song.  I had never heard the song and had no idea it was a Bieber song, but, as usual when it comes to pop music, Pam enlightened me.  I told her I hoped I never hear the original version.  Easton Corbin made a big deal about saying he lost a bet with one of his band mates and allowed the band mate to choose the song, but I think he just wanted to cover it.  While he was singing, Pam received a text from John and Kris wanting to know if this guy just sang covers.  They couldn’t believe their ears.  We assured them that this was not the case.  Anyway, Easton Corbin, did a great job, and we would happily see him again.

Between each act  the DJ returned to spin more music.  At least between the Easton Corbin and Carrie Underwood sets, he did some break dancing and shot some tee shirts into the crowd.  Finally, it was time for the main event.  We have never seen Carrie Underwood perform live.  We were not disappointed.  She put on a great show.

I am not one of her biggest fans, as she tends to oversing lots of her songs and instead of sounding good, she sounds screechy to me.  As I have said before, when it comes to music, less is usually more, and this really becomes apparent when she sings softer songs and her magnificent voice really shines.  That is why All-American Girl was the song of hers I liked the best, and that was why my other two favorite songs in the show were I Will Always Love You, a Dolly Parton cover, and Mountain Music, an Alabama cover.

As I watched the show, I realized that Carrie Underwood is really a professional performer.  She is not a natural entertainer, as she appears choreographed and not at all spontaneous.  I am not sure when I realized this, but it may have been after the second or third costume change, most likely dead giveaways that this was a completely rehearsed act.  I tend to find it amusing when artists continually change guitars during a show, though I understand the musical need for it.  I really do not see any value in a singer changing his or her clothes during a concert.  But apparently she does.

Carrie Underwood and her band made use of the entire acre of stage that night.  I admit that it added a dimension to the show, and by the end of it I found I really liked it.  Speaking of her band, they did an outstanding job, from the drums to the guitars to the fiddles, and Pam really loves the fiddle, though she refers to it as a violin.  Speaking of instruments, I was pleasantly surprised when Carrie played the harmonica during Choctaw County Affair.

When the summer started, if I would have been asked to decide whether I would rather see Miranda Lambert or Carrie Underwood, I would have chosen Carrie Underwood.  After having seen them both over the past month or so, I would choose to see Miranda every time, mainly because she puts on what appears to be a real, spontaneous show, even if it is just as produced as Carrie’s.  That is not to say that I would not see Carrie Underwood again.  I would go happily, without the need for the tequila and doughnuts that I would need to see Adele.

8/13/16

As I have mentioned in the past, Pam is a saint.  Our Adele experience just reinforced my awareness of it.  We see lots of shows, and Pam is in charge of ticket acquisition, a job she loves and hates at the same time.  Adele tickets went on sale months ago.  Demand was so great that the ticket websites crashed about ten minutes after the sale started.  Most people were shut out, as the shows sold out in minutes, but not Pam.

She had asked me if I would go see Adele.  I said sure, but I really had no idea what Adele sang.  Yeah, I knew she sang Skyfall, but I could not have recited one word of the lyrics or hummed one note of the melody.  I thought it would be a great show because I had heard it said she had an amazing voice.  Pam knew one or two of her songs, so she set out to get the tickets.  Turns out she did a bang up job.  She got us the best seats we have ever had at Staples without using connections or StubHub.  They were four rows off the floor.  They were just far enough into the arena so we had a perfect viewing angle to the stage.   Adele would be mere yards away when she sang.  The only issue was that the seats were in the middle of the row, a place Pam dreads.  She overcame her dread and bought the seats right before the sites crashed.

So, yeah.  We were going to Adele.  Then reality set in for me.  I started to learn a bit about her and her music.  Pam played me a song from her new album.  I saw her on the Grammys.  I was not impressed.  This woman sang depressing songs about failed relationships.  So depressing in fact, that I longed to battle the preteens at a Taylor Swift show, because at least her breakup songs were more or less upbeat.

Pam was more impressed, but she was not overwhelmed.  We thought about selling the seats.  The market for them was crazy, but the promoters were smart, selling us ticketless tickets which required us to use the same credit card that we used to purchase the seats in order to get in.  We decided getting around that was too tough, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that we had to go to a show people were dying to see, resulting in yet another first world problem for us to deal with in our lives.  Ironically, the credit card Pam used to buy the tickets was her Costco American Express card, and Costco terminated its relationship with American Express before the show.  American Express shut the card down, and Pam had to keep it around for a couple of months for no other reason than swiping it on the way into the show.

Deciding to go the show did not stop me from whining about it.  I am pretty good at that.  Of course, both of our girls, Kimberly and Shelby, volunteered to go in my place.  I saved Pam from the favoritism issues that would have resulted in her picking one of them to go by declaring that neither of them would go.  I would.  So besides pissing off both my girls, I came pretty close to pissing off Pam with my incessant whining, which is never a good idea, as even saints lose their patience eventually.

Downtown Los Angeles was a happening place the night of the show.  The Los Angeles Rams, yup, the Los Angeles Rams, the team I grew up watching and rooting for, were playing their first game as the home team in the Los Angeles Coliseum since 1979.  Despite the fact it was an exhibition game, 90,000 were in attendance for the 5 pm start.  Even worse, the Pandora Summer Crush Concert with 5 Seconds of Summer and Fergie was starting at 4:30 PM at LA Live, right next to Staples.  Adding the sold out Staples Center to the mix, just meant that too many people were in too small a place for me.

Because of this, we decided to get downtown early, eat dinner, and just hang out until the show started.  Pam was smart.  She dangled tequila and doughnuts, arguably not a common combination but an appealing one to me, as inducements to help me enjoy the show.  We parked at a little after 5 PM and walked over to El Cholo, where a Casa Noble Anejo Tequila had my name written all over it.  After dinner, we walked over to Birdies for some doughnuts made with cake batter.  We bought a doughnut to go, walked over to a bus stop, waited for the bus to go by, sat down on the bus stop bench, and ate the doughnut.  It was good.  I was ready for the show.  We walked back to Staples, fished out the dead credit card, had it swiped, and went in, but not before I had to spend what seemed like an eternity listening to Fergie make an abundance of noise that some deluded souls consider music.  Oh boy,  I was  ready for the show.  Pam could not have planned it any better.

As we settled into our seats, I realized just how good they were.  Damn, I wished we could have sold them.  Instead of dwelling on the negative, which is something I am also good at, I looked at the crowd as they filtered in, listened to their excited chatter about the upcoming show, and tried to guess when the screaming would start, as there were plenty of screamers all around me.

Despite my negative attitude or maybe because of it, I had a great time at the show.  That woman sang the shit out of every song she sang.  I didn’t hear one discordant, pitchy note the entire show.  She was funny.  She swore.  She was self-deprecating, something I never would have expected.  She was comfortable on stage, engaging the audience and telling quirky and personal stories.  Hell, she even made a funny reference or two to the abjectly depressing songs she wrote.  I realized what an amazing song writer she is and respected her for writing what resonates with her, not what is commercially expedient.  Her band was off the charts good, though at times I thought the drums were too loud, sending vibrations coursing through my chest and coming close to drowning out her vocals.  The overall effect was outstanding, though.  I found myself videoing snippets of many songs, as I was shocked to discover just how musically good they were.

Speaking of shocked moments, she blew me away when she sat on a stool and sang a couple of songs with only acoustic instruments backing her up.  The fact that she introduced them by saying she was a huge Alison Krause fan and saying that she loved country music, both high on my list, only heightened the experience for me.

Just to be clear, though, my testosterone levels have not plummeted precipitously, and I have not eaten enough soy to spike my estrogen levels.  I am still a guy, and despite how good a show it was, Adele’s music just does not resonate with me.  I was there.  I liked it.  I was impressed by it.  I just did not feel it.  I was a silent island in a sea of people who sang every word of every one of her songs.  I loved their enjoyment.  I tolerated their screams.  I revelled in their intensity.  But I could not share any of it.  I came in without knowing a single lyric and I left the same way.

What pleased me the most was Pam.  She loved the show, and that made me smile, knowing full well that there was a good chance I would be seeing Adele perform again.   I just hoped that next time I would still get the tequila and doughnuts.