The Sunday Morning (Even Though It SHOULD Have Been SATURDAY Morning – that chicken has a pretty solid contract) “Nobody-Asked-Me-To, But-Here-I-Go-Anyway” Concert Review – Brad Paisley…

(or, Why I Will Never Be A Professional Concert Reviewer…)

Friday night we enjoyed another stellar concert evening, this time out in the country music genre. It was a triple-header of hit-makers, with Taylor Swift & Rodney Atkins opening the show for Mr. Paisley – sold out to the rafters, which is where we happened to be this time. So much for presale advantage!

As a matter of fact, on the way to our seats, we stopped for oxygen, and narrowly missed getting clipped by an airliner. On the plus side, we had an awesome view of Orion & Aquarius.

One cool thing about the show we saw, is that when we surprised our families in Winnipeg, one of our nieces was on her way to see this very same show. She went anyway, instead of staying to visit with us, and we hope to forgive her someday…

The show opened with 17-year old hit-maker Taylor Swift, who charmed the crowd with her original compositions. For such a young lady, she had the crowd in the palm of her hand, and at one point, had to wait almost 5 minutes for the crowd to settle down. She was terrific….

A couple of rows down from us, we had two very young ladies (late teens or even a bit older) that were really enjoying the show, and wanted to capture the moment forever. Every few minutes, they put their heads together, and took a picture of…no, not the stage or performer, but themselves. Over and over and over again. OMIGOD, Taylor Swift is like, sooooo awesome, let’s take a picture of ourselves watching her. SNAP! OMIGOD, people are using their cell phones to wave light in the air, Quick, let’s take a picture of ourselves watching!! CLICK!!

After Taylor’s set, Rodney Atkins (3 Number One hits so far from his first album) hit the stage, and kicked some Calgary ass. Sorry for the language, but he really did kick ass.

We have a bit of a history with Mr. Atkins. He has a song that we used to hear every time we went to a casino (which honestly, is nowhere near as often as it may seem). It became our theme song this summer, and did pretty good for him too. Obviously pretty big with the audience – they went nuts too. Mrs. That Dan Guy was up hopping around, clapping and hollering. I had to be the dignified one…

Several times throughout Mr. Atkins set, our young ladies friends two rows down felt compelled to capture the moment (of them watching him) on camera. There were more flashes on that row than with the entire onstage light show…

Finally, Mr. Brad Paisley. Holy crap – is that guy an entertainer!! His stage was one of the most unique we have ever seen, and we see the odd live concert or two. Like some sort of giant cut-up Jumbotron, flashing images and such all night long. Waaaay cool.

Our young lady friends must have thought so too.

“OMIGOD, Brad Paisley’s set is like sooooo cool!! Let’s take another twenty pictures of us looking at it!!”

For anyone not familiar with Brad Paisley, he has a terrific sense of humour in most of his songs (wry and clever, not Al Yankovic), plus he’s an incredible guitar player.

“OMIGOD, Brad Paisley is suuuuuch a good guitar player!! Let’s take another thirty pictures of us watching him play!!!”

He rocked! He rolled! He was unreal, especially with his smokin’ reworking of “Folsom Prison Blues” for one of his encores.

You know, I’ve often thought that if I were a popular Hot Country entertainer, I might be Brad Paisley. But I’m not.

And, to top things off, while we were killing time before the show, we played a few sheckels in Stampede Casino. I put five bucks into a dollar machine, and won $490.00!! So the show and everything ended up being free, and now we have the money to pick up George Carlin tickets. It’s a vicious circle…

Chow for now!!