Keith Urban - 7/26/11

Keith Urban

Hampton Coliseum – 7/26/11

Life has been a bit busy this summer. Exactly one month from this date we leave for our 16-day Alaska trip! Combined with all the other stuff we’ve managed to cram in this summer it’s been quite chaotic.

Cari came home Sunday and since she needed an outfit for an interview on Wednesday and I still needed a couple of tops for the cruise AND I had a 20% off coupon for Kohls (that expired Sunday), we grabbed some lunch and went shopping. Let me just say it was a pretty productive shopping afternoon. We got home just in time to head back out to meet Mike and Paddy for Harry Potter at the new Beach Movie Bistro. It was after 9:30 when we got home.

Monday we met Herb and Jean at Baker’s Crust for lunch and ran some other errands afterwards. Farm Fresh had some wild caught Alaskan for a change so we picked up some for dinner. By the time we got home it was around 4:00. After dinner we watched another boring movie from Netflix. Cari and I played around on our Nooks and another day bit the dust.

Tuesday we dropped Peanut off at the groomer and stopped by Dress Barn to see what kind of clearance deals we could get. We got some. Let me just leave it at that. We managed to get out of there just in time to pick up Peanut and head home to meet Regina for lunch. I put some chicken salad together for dinner and it was time to leave for the concert. I guess my reasoning for putting all this in my Keith journaling is because Cari and I weren’t even excited about the show! We hadn’t had time to even think about it to get excited. I don’t think I have ever gone to a concert before with so little anticipation. It was a weird feeling.

The drive to Hampton was really not bad – even in rush hour traffic. The doors opened at 6:30 and we were there waiting in line by about 6:25. Jake Owen opened at 7:30. While I don’t love every one of his songs, I really liked him. I’ll enjoy listening to him even more now. He played for about 40-45 minutes.

Keith took the stage between 8:30-8:45. It was awesome. The whole show was awesome. It’s been so long since we’ve seen him – except in Nashville at Fan Fair. There is definitely a difference in Keith the person and Keith the performer from the last time we saw him in Richmond (2006). I guess between the life changes he’s experienced (marriage, children) and getting clean, he’s just happy. At least it seems that way.

The title of his current CD is “Get Closer.” It’s also the title of this tour. One of the first things he shared with us was his reason for choosing the Hampton Coliseum over the amphitheater. He wanted a smaller feeling venue, something more like a club. He asked us how we liked the new stage, “with all those stupid fences gone that separates us from you.”

This new Keith seems to be all about getting close to his fans. He gave us a taste of that in Nashville when he picked our section to come up in and perform. Talk about the highlight of the entire week! There was a small circle “stage” in the center of the floor that he played several songs on, which gave him the opportunity to see and “get closer” to even more fans. Towards the beginning of the show he was talking to us and reading signs people were holding up. He spotted one that said “Sweet 16.” It was her birthday. Keith said, “Sweet 16 and never been kissed … not by me!” He motioned for her to come up on stage and kissed her on the cheek. Now how stinking cool is that? Towards the end of the show he did exactly what he did in Nashville – picked a spot in the upper section to perform. Since we had experienced that we knew EXACTLY what those fans were feeling! God it was fun! When he finished “You Look Good in My Shirt,” he signed the guitar he was playing and handed it to a little girl nearby. She looked like she was maybe nine years old and talk about being in shock! Can you even imagine?

The entire night was like this. When you see a performer having so much fun interacting with his fans, you can’t help but have an incredible time yourself. I just love watching him. I love watching him get lost in his guitar and just be in the moment. I love watching his body language and mannerisms. He’s just fun. And when he demonstrates that he enjoys us as much as we enjoy him it doesn’t get any better than that.

“Kiss A Girl” was another special moment of the night. After the first verse or so, he stopped playing and picked three random people from the audience to join him on stage. It was like a sing off competition. The people had some brass ones I’ll tell you. However, DJ was pretty damn good – he “won.” The prize was actually singing with Keith. I videoed the entire thing – it was amazing!

He took a moment before it ended to acknowledge that lots of people are dealing with tough economic times these days. There are always a lot of concerts to choose from when deciding which ones you can afford to go to. He thanked us for choosing to spend our Tuesday night with him.

The man played for nearly 2-1/2 hours, performing 23 songs. Here’s the set list:

Put You in a Song

Fly With Me

Boondocks (Little Big Town)

Days Go By

Only You Can Love Me This Way

Long Hot Summer

Stupid Boy

Silly Love Songs

Making Memories of Us

I’m In

Blue Jeans

You’ll Think of Me

Better Half

Georgia Woods

Summer Comes Around

Sweet Thing

Kiss A Girl

Without You

Somebody Like You

Who Wouldn’t Want to be Me

You Look Good In My Shirt

Tonight I’m Gonna Cry (my fave)

Better Life

I didn’t even take my camera so the only shots I got were with my iPhone. I did take lots of videos though. Walking back to the car guess who we ran into? DJ! I told him I got the entire thing on video and he gave me his email to send it to him. He was still on cloud nine! We certainly walked away from this show feeling like we got more than our money from those tickets. That concert is definitely in my top five faves, if not my top two.

... and next week we get to see Kenny again!!! :)

"Big Pool!!"

After sleeping late, Heidi came over for lunch and we all headed over to Regina's for some pool time. Morgan is talking up a storm and parroting any and everything she hears. It's so cute!! I had picked up a float and some water balls (you know the baby loves her some balls). On the way over we were telling her that we were going to a big pool. She knows what a pool is because her MaMaw has an above ground and she loves it. You should've seen her face when she saw the big in-ground pool! So cute!!

She was a bit clingy in the beginning. I think she was just overwhelmed. It didn't take her long to get over it though. She absolutely LOVED when Regina turned on the fountains. It's hysterical how she loves to get under them and get her head all wet! Heidi put her floaties on and before long she was jumping off the stairs, the side of the pool and even the diving board. She was fearless!! We'd be playing in the water and she'd look at me and say, "Jump?" LOL When I said, "Sure, go ahead!" she'd go up the stairs and walk around to the side and jump to me. I can't even begin to tell you how many times she did that. Regina called her the little energizer bunny because she did not stop the entire afternoon. She wasn't the only one who was gonna sleep good that night.

Regina made these incredible chicken nachos for us to snack on (should've taken a pic of those too). It was the perfect afternoon! We have to do that again before the end of the summer. It was heaven!!

Heidi said Morgan fell asleep in the car on the way home, around 4:30. She had to wake her up to try and get some dinner in her and Morgan cried through it. Went back to sleep and didn't get up until almost 7am Saturday morning. I think we wore her out! :)

So sad ...

The anticipation for the final Harry Potter film had been building for months, years actually. I think many of us had conflicting emotions about this film. I was so excited about seeing it, but at the same time was so sad that it's over. We had to say goodbye to Harry, Hermoine, Ron and the rest of the gang.

Cari and Matt drove down on Thursday and we met at PMS Deli for lunch. From there we ran some errands and the rest of the afternoon and evening flew by! We left here around 10:00pm to pick up Regina and get to the theater a little early (or so we thought) so we could make sure we got a good seat. R-I-G-H-T ... There were 18 theaters (some large, some small) showing the movie at midnight. You could sit anywhere you could find a seat - with the exception of the 3D theater. We went through most of them an even 90 minuets early we couldn't find four seats in any upper section. It was crazy!! We ended up sitting in the back row of a lower section - closer than we'd have liked but it was the best we could find. The time passed fairly quickly (playing Angry Birds - LOL) and soon the lights went down and it was time ... for previews. After 20, or more, minutes of previews the movie finally started!

Those two hours went by fast. I loved the movie and thought they did a good job (mostly) of portraying the book correctly. They did change a few things but for the most part it was accurate. It was a late night. I think we got to bed around 3:00-3:30am. But it was awesome.

25 Years!!

I guess I'm just getting bloody old. Bob and I have been married for TWENTY FIVE YEARS!!! Wow! It still blows me away! I'm so lucky to have found a man who puts up with me day in and day out. I know I'm not the easiest person to live with some days - especially with this hormone deprived, menopausal body now. There are days even I don't want to be around me. They suck. Still he loves me anyway. He may not like me some days but he still loves me. There are so many instabilities in life it's comforting to have a partner who is stable. I've always said he's my rock, my grounding rod. We are so very different, Bob and I. Like night and day on lots of things. But where it counts, home, family, core values and such, we meld pretty well.

He surprised me with my very own new Nook Color reader!! I was so excited!! I still have my issues with not being able to share digital books I buy but I guess I'll learn to work around it. At least with the Nook I can borrow books from the library and read them for free. You still can't do that on the Kindle. (On a side note, Dad is loving his Kindle!) I was in the middle of reading Iris Johansen's "On The Run" and immediately went to the library to see if I could check it out and finish it on my Nook. I could!! That was pretty cool! It's going to be so nice traveling with it! I'll really get that experience on our trip to Alaska.

We went to Burton's Grill at Hilltop for dinner. It was one of the best dinners we've ever had! Bob and I split their Mediterranean Salad for an appetizer and it's always good (with a nice bottle of wine of course). For our main course they had fresh Alaskan Sockeye Salmon that was to die for! It was over some kind of fresh corn salsa (and you know I love corn!) and slices of fresh tomatoes from Pungo. We ordered Creme Brulee that finished it off nicely! We waddled back to our car. What a wonderful day!!