If she had the proper words to say,

The concert last night was fabulous. We left the house at 6:15pm, grabbed dinner at Taco Bell, stopped at an ATM to get cash for parking, and made it to the Qwest Center at 6:50. The concert was to start as 7:00, but our seats were on the far side of the arena, and we had to walk all the way around the back of the stage (I'd never sat on that side before for any event). Our seats were in the highest section, almost as far away as you could get, but at least we were relatively close to the stage (from the layout of the arena, that is). We ended up making to our seats in plenty of time, as the concert didn't actually start until 7:30pm.

If you were lucky enough to play the voice post from last night, you heard a tiny clip from the opening band, Sugarland. 'Baby Girl' was the last song in their set, and they were pretty good. Jennifer Nettles is very, very pretty, and she can really belt it out, too. The only thing that bugged me was that she ends every sentence with "okay," but more in that really drawled voice, like this: "Ohmmmkaaaaay?" You'd probably have to hear her to know what I mean.

Dierks Bentley played the second set, and he was a fantastic performer. The folks behind us didn't know who he was before he started, but afterwards they couldn't talk about anything else. He really got the crowd going. And seriously, when he sang "I Feel Like Layin' You Down," I'd have let him. ;-) He was the hardest to photograph, for some reason, and I think it might have had something to do with the massive amounts of yellow lighting during his set. *shrugs*

Before Kenny Chesney came on, three huge curtains dropped to cover the set. I'd been expecting that, having seen it in his concert last year - he likes to keep the crowd in suspense. The lights went dark, and I started frantically scanning the arena, sure that he wouldn't come up on the stage. I was right, and he didn't - he came up directly behind the lights/sound folks on the floor! I accidentally smacked the girl next to me to get her attention and point to where I'd found him, but she squealed in delight and was glad that I'd shown her (I apologized later, but she told me not to worry).

A lot of the songs were the same as his tour last year, but he sang a few new ones, as well: 'Keg in the Closet' (which hadn't yet been released last year), 'The Road and the Radio' (the title track of his newest album), 'Beer in Mexico,' 'Living In Fast Forward' and 'Who You'd Be Today.' When he sang that last one, a video montage played of famous people who've died. Philip clapped heartily when a picture of Kenny Chesney standing next to Dale Earnhardt flashed across the screen. I'd heard the song tons of times, of course, but I guess I never really *felt* the lyrics as much as I did last night. I started thinking about certain friends of mine, and I was really sad for them. Before the song wrapped, I looked over to see tears in Philip's eyes and on his cheek - and that was tough.

Towards the end of Kenny's set, the music began playing for 'When the Sun Goes Down.' The music video for the song was playing on the screens behind, but I was thinking to myself, "It sucks that Philip won't get to see Uncle Kracker perform this with him like last year." I shouldn't have worried, though, for when it came time for Kracker's part, out he walked onto the stage! He wasn't billed for this concert, so we fans went NUTS with excitement! They sang Kid Rock's 'Cowboy' again (like last year's concert), and they also paired up to sing Kracker's 'Drift Away.' Sugarland came back out as well, and the four of them finished singing that song together.

Kenny left the stage then, but I was sure that it wasn't over - he hadn't sung 'She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy' yet! Sure enough, the lighting all went green (John Deere green, of course!), and the fiddle started the familiar intro. Kenny began singing the song, and then Dierks Bentley came out to make it a duet. Very cool.

Kenny signed lots of autographs at the end for those near to the stage, and we began making our way out of the Qwest Center. During the break between Sugarland and Dierks Bentley, Philip had bought me a burnt orange Kenny Chesney concert t-shirt, but I'd tucked it away in my purse. It didn't take Philip but about two minutes to get out of the parking lot, and we were home really quick. Altogether, I took just shy of 300 pictures, but I whittled it down to 65 this morning. We were really far away, so most all of my shots are full-on 12x optically-zoomed. ;-) And oh, my neck hurt so much from taking all those pics last night, but it was so worth it!

( The Road & the Radio Tour - in pictures. )

I scrapbooked three pages on the Kenny Chesney concert with Gret last April. It was important to get that done, as the next KC "experience" is less than a month away (April 5th!). Philip and I are going together this time, and the little tickets have been sitting on my desk for almost five weeks now - it's torture!

It would be wonderful if I would remember to take a picture of my completed pages while it's still daylight. I always forget until the nighttime, and then the pictures are flashed out. I have tons of pages that need to go up in nicole_scraps... ah, well.

I made my chicken taco, and it was fabulous and filling. Mmmmm.