Gavin DeGraw & David Cook November 5, 2011
Katie 
Saturday night’s show seemed like it took forever to come! Doors opened late and we were greeted to the opening act of Canaan Smith. I wasn’t sure what to think about him… he came out with a HUGE silver microphone necklace on which he hung on the mic stand.. and then he sang country songs. (Although one of the songs he did sing about how he was country and rap so I guess it all started to make sense at that point) When I came home, I looked him up on Google to try and find some fun information about him – and I found out that he was on a season of Amazing Race! I love the show but hardly ever remember who the contestants are as soon as they are eliminated, but when I came home and said that name “Canaan” to my mom – she remembered that he was the one whose girlfriend did not want to go down the slide at Atlantis! Once she said that I remembered him. (The poor girl was afraid to go down and he could not convince her and they ended up losing the race because of it! But they are still together if anyone was curious!)
Then it was time for Gavin DeGraw. I’m not all that familiar with any of his new stuff, mainly because I am a slacker and never listen to the CDs I buy… (I really need to work on that) but his set was a mix of new and old so I was able to hold my own with the older songs. He threw in a couple of bits of covers during his set – The Script’s Breakeven and Bruno Mars Grenade. He also sat down at the piano without his band backing him and said that he was going to sing a song that he liked to sing back when he was a teenager and how his brother and him would play songs at the gym after it closed and one of the guys there had told him some profane things that women would do to him if he learned a few songs, but at the time he didn’t know what that meant. He went on to do a cover of Let’s Get It On. He also commented that he was a bit sick so some of the high notes he wasn’t able to hit – but that when he was ok he couldn’t really hit those notes either! I sat down for his set but most of my row stood at their seats, which made me a bit nervous for when David came out because my balance isn’t too hot to stand at my seat, but if I could lean against the stage I’d be fine.
Fortunately, when David came out the row did all go against the stage so things were fine! (My feet were asleep and killing me by the time David’s set was over, but that was ok!) I thought it was interesting that he started and ended the set with the starting and ending tracks from the new cd – Circadian and Rapid Eye Movement. At one point near the end of the set, the band was going to leave the stage and David told them not to leave. Since it was a full house – he was going to add a song that wasn’t on the setlist – a cover. He asked if we wanted some Fog Hat, but when the response was less than stellar he decided against that. He told the band that they were instead going to do Whitesnake, which was something that they had done in sound check but never live before and that it might suck. Once it was over he said that he now felt like they were a band that could play at a wedding and went in to part of “Celebration” and then talked a bit about a Father / Daughter dance being Butterfly Kisses and how he had a better song! And then he went in to Bar Ba Sol lol. I have to say the highlights of David shows are always him talking to the crowd. At one point another gang from CT was yelling how they were from Connecticut and still had no power. David said he didn’t mean to be rude, but all he heard was “wat wat wat” (read that like the Charlie Brown teacher talks!) and they tried to say it again but he still couldn’t hear and then he said he could go on with the Charlie Brown teacher voice all night, but he wouldn’t. He seemed quite overwhelmed that the show was a sell out (or near sell out) and thanked us for standing by him and waiting for the new album to come out because they took so long to do it, he had no idea what the state of the music industry would be when he got back. And also he thanked us a few times for supporting live music. (Also worth noting one of the roadies had a clown mask on and kept bringing stuff to the stage. Creepy!)
The show was definitely a blast and I am glad that I made the trip to go!
