As I had mentioned before, I ended up winning tickets to this show very last minute from Kris Allen’s band, but I was very excited that I won. All day yesterday and Saturday too I was refreshing LiveNation’s ticket sale site hoping something would pop up. Single tickets were coming up, but they were far away and they were $97.50 on Saturday and $99.50 yesterday (they up the price on the day of the show!) Then more tickets closer to the center started getting released but the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t justify $100 when I was basically only going to see Kris. (I’d have stayed to see Keith either way but being unemployed for the time being I have to look at how I spend my money a bit differently than when I had a job!)
As I have said before – winning contests is all about following the right people on twitter. Kris Allen’s band was the twitter to follow in this situation and I had seen that they had done giveaways for other shows. I just wasn’t sure if they’d have any tickets to give away for Keith. But then about 3:30 they posted saying they had only 2 pairs to giveaway. Other days it was 4 or 5 pairs so I knew I had to be quick! They posted the question and I freaked out because I didn’t know it off the top of my head! Thought about it, figured it out and posted. Then I sat there waiting to see if I was one of the first two to enter correctly – and I WAS.
My mom has said she likes Keith Urban so I asked her if she wanted to go and she said sure! We got to Oakdale and at first they couldn’t find the tickets. They asked me “How did you get the tickets?” when I said “From Kris Allen’s Band” at first she seemed confused but then found them almost immediately in a different pile. A special pile of tickets I guess 😉 I handed my mom her ticket, and glanced down and saw “102” as the section. Since I had been trying for a day and a half for the tickets I had basically had the seating chart memorized. I told my mom they were really good seats and she said they weren’t and we were on the side. I assured her we were in the center section, just quite a few rows back (We were the 2nd to the last row of the section) and finally she believed me.
At 7:30, Kris and his band came out! I get so excited to see him, really no one else gets the kind of reaction out of me that he does! He started with Can’t Stay Away, then did his mashup of Heartless and Gangsta’s Paradise. It seemed to be more polished since I had last seen him do it in December at the radio shows.
Then he went into my favorite, Alright with Me, and had the crowd sing the ‘yeah yeah yeah yeah’s I wasn’t sure how the crowd would react to him because I feel like country is an odd pairing for Kris – but then again I left the show wondering how Keith is considered country! But the crowd seemed really into it, even though there weren’t too many people at their seats at the time.
Then he did The Truth, and I still wonder why the label felt the need to include Pat Monahan on the single because Kris sings it quite well all on his own! He did Written All Over My Face next… and then did one that he thought everyone would know and sing along to – Michael Jackson’s Man In The Mirror. I remember in the beginning of Idol, I gave everyone nicknames because I couldn’t remember names and his was “Michael Jackson Boy” haha because he sang MJ twice. (once I think in the semis and then again for MJ week)
After that he did 2 more of his own songs – Is It Over and Live Like We’re Dying where he encouraged everyone to get up and have a dance party to the song. To finish out his set he did a cover of Come Together. I was worried my camera battery wouldn’t last because I hadn’t changed them since JUNE but they held out for all of Kris’ set which was really all I needed them to do.
When it was time for Keith to come out – I grabbed the camera and it started blinking ‘Battery Empty’ It would have been nice to have some better photos of Keith, but I forgot my backup batteries at home because I had taken them out of my purse a couple weeks ago so it wouldn’t weigh me down when I didn’t have my “bigger” camera.
Keith hit the stage at about 9pm and played til a little before 11. (I think when we got to the car it was 11) I started out standing for him, so I could see, but the seats were on such an incline it was taking too much effort for me to keep my balance so I ended up sitting for most of the show and standing up here and there. More near the end of the show people had left so I could see him even from my seat, which was nice!
Keith was very high energy and the band was more of a rock n roll band than a country band, I thought. He had a great stage presence and seemed like he is really good to his fans and really loves that he has them. It had been 5 years since he had last played at Oakdale! He gave a lot of shout outs to the people up top in the balcony and then teased about the people in the boxes saying stuff like “My Lord it is great to play for you”
Since I was sitting, I was able to pull up a set list from the night before to follow along – and listen for the titles in the chorus’. So yes, I cheated a bit on the setlist haha (Though there were a few changes and additions that I had to keep track of) He also had a call and response section where he was just making stuff up – at one point he had the crowd repeating the alphabet back to him! Too funny…
There were 2 highlights of the night for me at least, the first was when he had Kris come back out to sing “Jack and Diane” with him. I had told my mom that Kris sings with him most of the time, and that we definitely couldn’t leave before that (although once we were there, we weren’t leaving lol) and of course as Kris came out the battery in my other camera started blinking! Argh! Luckily I had a backup for that camera though and was able to quickly switch it out. Kris forgot the words to the song and Keith teased him saying “and you won american idol?” and Kris just yelled “I forgot the words!” He is so cute! The crowd helped out a bit though.
The second was when he was playing a guitar that was lighting up different colors. It was really cool. And then he jumped into the crowd! We were technically on the aisle of our section (as the people next to us had left at this point) but he managed to go down just about every aisle in the front BUT ours! Women were freaking out that he touched them and the poor guards had to hold everyone back from rushing from the back sections down to where he was. He played part of the song right behind us on I guess a little stand so we went from being in the back of the section to the front! I thought he was very brave to run through the crowd like that – even though he had security he got the whole crowd into a frenzy! Then for his next song he was still catching his breath and turned the mic to the crowd to sing most of it!
One of the changes to the setlist was that his friend Troy Cassar-Daley was there, and he came out and sang a song. He said he was bringing him out to play because they didn’t want to leave yet. Then Troy played guitar for Better Life and the show was over.
Until it was time for the encore, of course. He came out and sang “I Only Want To Be With You”, which I think is a Bay City Rollers song? Which was another difference from the show the night before whos setlist I was cheating from! He finished the evening with Somebody Like You and then him and the band threw out tons and tons of guitar picks and drumsticks but unfortunately no one could get it far back enough to where we were!
Overall it was a great show and I am very glad that I got to go see it – Kris said during his set that it was a great show and he was definitely right!
I feel like this is one of the longest blogs I have written in a while LOL pictures coming either later today or tomorrow.. depending on when I have time to get it set up!