I'm alive! I'm not sure how, but I am. In case you didn't catch my post from last night (actually early this morning, but who's keeping track?) I got to go to the sold-out Taylor Swift concert yesterday thanks to Wow Country 104.3's Don Jarrett. I was so excited and let's just say I wasn't disappointed, it was an awesome concert.
Don had told me to be there by 5:00, I was there at 4 so I sat around and watched the guys assemble the Wall of Wow and the canopy. It was funny how many people came up to try and get backstage passes. Some even offered to sing for their passes. Sadly the radio station didn't have anymore backstage passes so I didn't get to see anyone sing.
Then it was time to get up and in line to get inside the gates. This is what greeted us as soon as we walked through. Not sure who those people are in front of Taylor's bus, but they were there so they got in my picture.
So we headed inside the building into a cluster *uck of trying to figure out where to go for the meet&greet. Our little slips of paper with directions said be at a specific place at 6:15 "sharp." I think they were a little bit confused about the word sharp because it was like 6:45 before we finally got in. But first we went on an adventure trying to find where we were supposed to be. We went to the original instructed spot with no luck. We got sent to another spot where we stood for like 10 or 15 minutes just hanging out and waiting. It was kinda cool, tho, because they had this green screen thing where you could record a video "with Taylor" and Verizon would email the finished product to you. Very cool. This is just a random dad and his kid but it made me smile. The things we parents will do for our kids.
Well then we found out that that place we were standing was the wrong place, we in fact had to go back to where we started. So the herd of lucky fans headed back to where we came from in the first place and stood there. Then we were told that we were again in the wrong spot. Needless to say people were starting to get a little peeved. Well lots of standing around and we finally, FINALLY ended up in the right spot and got shooed into the bowels of the Idaho Center where Taylor was going to be. They had dresses from her videos there for pictures and then a guy came out and told us to put our cameras away. Not exactly sure why we weren't allowed to take our own pictures, but we weren't.
BooYah
Finally got to catch site of Taylor as she whizzed past us. Up to the front she went where she proceeded to hug everyone and chat with everyone in a nice orderly manner. She is truly a pro and I think everyone who was there felt like for just a moment they were Taylor's friend. And let me tell you, I'm SO not a hugger. About the only people I'm comfortable hugging is my husband and my kids, everyone else it always feels sort of creepy to me. The radio guys and I were laughing while we were standing in line about me telling Taylor I didn't hug and giving her my knuckles for a knuckle bump like Howie Mandel does, but as soon as I got up there and she acted genuinely happy that I was there, the hugging part wasn't creepy in the least.
Then finally came the concerts. My seats were awesome! My seat was one row up from the floor. Row A baby.
First up was Gloriana. Now I must confess that I'm not a huge fan of their "Wild at Heart" song that's on the radio right now. It's a fun tune but for some reason it's just not one that I've gotten into. Some songs just take a while to grow on me. Now the other three or four songs that they sang in concert were great and ones I would like to hear on the radio in the future. I didn't write down the set lists or anything so I can't tell you what they sang, but I can tell you that I can see why Taylor picked them to tour with her despite their relative unknown status - they're a great band. One of the songs they taped for a music video so you may just see Nampa, Idaho on one of their future videos.
Then came Kellie Pickler. She's so cute. I must say that she sounded different in real life and was much better than I expected. I've always loved Kellie, but more as one blonde to another. A sort of sisterhood thing. I've also liked her music, but I never really thought of her as having much of a voice. She surprised me and I thought she sounded great. My favorite was when she sat down on the stool and sang "I Wonder." It's by far my favorite Kellie Pickler song.
I must confess that I left before Kellie finished her set - sorry Kellie - but Gloriana had announced that when Kellie was finished singing they would be upstairs signing autographs so I wanted to run up and meet them before the line was horribly long. While in line I met a little girl and her dad. We chatted and I found out that they were from Salt Lake City, Utah and on Saturday had been in Portland for the Taylor Swift concert there and then drove the 300 and some odd miles to make it to the Sunday show in Nampa. Holy moly, now that's a pair of devoted fans. I believe the little girl's name was Toshiana but don't quote me on that. I told her I'd put the picture of her meeting Gloriana up on the site, but I didn't write her name down so please forgive me nice little girl from Salt Lake if I got your name wrong.
When it was my turn to meet the group, I introduced myself and said I ran NashvilleGab. The brunette (Rachel Reinert I believe) said she had been to my site and noticed that I didn't write about them much. I told her it was true, I didn't really write that much about them but now that I had met them I'd change that. She asked me to stick around and meet their tour manager and take a picture with them so I did. I must say that all the members of the group were wonderfully nice...their tour manager, not so much. She really seemed a bit dismissive. I introduced myself to her and she just sort of looked me up and down and then went about her business like I wasn't there. It's not like I'm from CMT or something, but being a little bit friendly to someone who is willing to give your artist free promotion just seems smart business sense, but maybe that's just me. Of course she was trying to hustle the line along and get finished up so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't actually rude, just busy. But like I said, Gloriana themselves were really, really nice and they did a great job onstage so in the end that's all that matters.
Then came the main event, the big enchilada, the queen of the evening...Taylor Swift. I was still upstairs with Gloriana when Taylor came on and let me tell you that the floor reverberated. It literally shook the entire place when Taylor made her first appearance. If you've never heard 12,000 or so screaming tweens it's definitely a sound to behold! There were still people standing around at the concession stands when she started singing and it was like a herd of cattle stampeding as they all ran back to their seats at once. I watched one poor security guy just about get knocked down by a gaggle of girls in sun dresses and cowgirl boots. He looked bewildered but unharmed.
I finished up what I was doing and then made my way back to my seat. Like I said I didn't keep track of what songs anyone sang, but it's pretty much what you'd expect Taylor to sing. Now I've made comments in the past about Taylor being better in small venues and about her sound quality, but I'm here to admit my mistake and to say sorry because Taylor is definitely a showman and the girl is made for entertaining large crowds. She gets to whipping that hair around and flinging her guitar around and she's absolutely mesmerizing. And she sounded great! I love Taylor and always have but I didn't have much hope for her sounding great in concert. I'm an adult and can admit when I'm wrong, she sounded really, really strong and good. Maybe it was the fact that the music was loud enough to drown out a jet plane, but whatever it was it sounded good. The girl rocks, she parties, and she blew the enormous crowd away.
There were, of course, the theatrics - the castle, the dancers, the smoke, the lights, all of that that you would expect, but there were also the unexpected moments. At one point Taylor disappeared for what seemed like just another costume change (there were a lot), but she in fact ended up clear on the other end of the Idaho Center right in the middle of the crowd. Those people who were far away from the stage were suddenly within touching range. It was completely unexpected and really awesome. Taylor walked through the crowd to another section and sang from there. She was right in the thick of this adoring crowd, how she was ever able to muscle her way through is beyond me. I hope the big, burly security guards got hazzard pay that day. Along the way Taylor gave even more hugs, shook more hands, and handed out bracelets. How the girl keeps from getting sick (as in catching the flu) from all the fan contact is beyond me.
All in all, it really was just a great, entertaining evening. Tweens, teens, parents, grandparents - everyone looked to be having fun. Taylor's tickets are spendy, but it really is worth the price of admission. It just amazes me that this is her first headlining tour. And if you have any doubts about whether Miss Taylor is here to stay, you must check out her one-woman hurricane and it will open your eyes - it definitely opened mine.
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