Well, That Was Interesting

Last night, I found myself here:



Amidst this sea of humanity. You see, I managed to find myself in possession of 2 tickets to see Keith Urban in Charleston for his new tour.

I'm not a fan of "new" or pop-country, really. However, I do love Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and some other "old" country stars like them.

In fact, I had never heard a Keith Urban song in my life.

So, anyway, I made plans with a friend about a week prior. I didn't want to wait 'til the last minute. Unfortunately, she called 24 hours before the concert to tell me that her husband's grandmother (who had been sick and in the hospital all week) had taken a turn for the worst and she couldn't go.

I called everyone I knew and no dice. I even begged on Facebook.

I ended up taking Buddy rather than wasting the tickets. Besides, I just wanted to get out of the house for a while.

It was packed, as you can imagine. But, we got there early and found our seats, so I had reached a nice "comfort zone" by the time the opening band went on.

The opening band was the Zac Brown Band and they were alright. They did a few cover songs that I liked (i.e. was already familiar with) and then after a few minutes of stage rearranging, Keith Urban came out.

It was all very cool effects with the lighting and fog machines, etc. The crowd went wild. Buddy and I just sat in our seats with big eyes.

Now, I've been to plenty of concerts in my day, but this was a first for Buddy. Plus, it has been a really LONG time since my ass sat in those Civic Center seats.

It was very hazy from the fog machines (and I suspect from some people smoking - and not just cigs, if you catch my drift - even though smoking is prohibited) that it was very difficult to get any decent pictures.

We were also on the top level, but in the front row of that, so our seats were actually very good - we also had a monitor close by we could watch when the action on the stage was too confusing:



If you look to the right on the photo above, you can see Keith on the monitor. He changed positions a lot, so he was often closer to our side of the stage and at one point went out into the crowd where he performed a few songs on a different stage set up out there.

We only stayed for about half of his set or so. We wanted to beat the crowds out and it was getting late and it was still a school night, so we vamoosed early.

I must say that Keith plays more of a "rock" country vibe than the "pop" country that seems so popular these days. He is very talented - even if it isn't my favorite musical genre.

The highlights of the evening include a fight that broke out in between the sets - we got to see security haul one guy out. And, that was even before Keith took the stage!

The other highlight was this one guy - he was about 2 or 3 rows back from the main stage (so, right on the main floor). He stood the entire time and waved his cup of beer back and forth - for both the opening act and Keith Urban's set. That is, when he didn't have his wife/girlfriend in a headlock. I know you've seen the "headlock" maneuver where the guy puts his whole arm around his partner's neck with the elbow bent so the entire forearm is across her front neck/chest area.

If anyone did that to me, I'll elbow them in the ribs so hard, they wouldn't attempt it ever again.

Anyway, it was all very interesting and this morning, Buddy told me that he had fun and that the concert was very good. So, I guess that's successful? :-)