Tuesday, September 12, 2006

9.12.06



Finally, my American Idol concert review and video/picture upload! :)
(This is going to be a VERY LONG post)

I would have done this yesterday but going on 4 hours of sleep wasn't good.

So, the concert was Sunday night here in Austin. In one word - FUN!!
I wouldn't say that everyone just blew me away. Some of the performers seemed tired, which is completely understandable. Their schedule is crazy!
But it was LOTS of fun to see them perform live after watching them on TV for so long. And they all seem to be really close friends.

OK....first, the videos! My digital camera has a great video feature, so I took advantage of it. It was funny because I think Bucky was performing and I was taking a video and all of a sudden it said, "memory card full." ACK! There were still several performers left, including Chris and Taylor! So I sat down and erased a bunch of video that was already on there, ha. (Kellie, Paris, Lisa)
Had to prioritize. :)

Here are the videos from the concert:


Mandisa was FABULOUS!!! I love her style and her confidence. She has strong faith in the Lord, too.
Here she is singing "I'm Every Woman." (sorry the audio/video don't stay in sync in some places)




Here is Ace singing George Michael's "Father Figure." This was his first solo song.
Let's just say he knows how to play the crowd, especially the females.




Chris has some kind of voice! WOW!! The place was going crazy for him.
(sorry this one got a little out of sync, too)



Ace again, this time between songs talking to the audience, then
putting on his trademark beanie cap. Again, major audience player. :)
(you can hear me laughing a little because my husband was making
hilarious comments..haha)




Just a short clip of Chris singing some Bon Jovi.
Love the hat!
**********************

Now here are just a few of the many, many photos I took.
We were on the equivalent of the 17th row, so with the
terrific seats and my camera zoom, I got some pretty decent shots.
Some of them are blurry because some of the performers would NOT
be still! :D

You can click on any of the photos to see a larger version.
















































Before the concert started, I looked over to the side seats and Will Makar was
standing there talking to a few people. So I went over and asked him for a picture!
He was really sweet. (he was in the top 24 contestants)



******************************************

There were some really big Taylor fans sitting next to us at the concert.
That was fun! They told us that Taylor's band, The Little Memphis Blues Orchestra,
was playing at Antone's downtown right after the concert. So, after
rearranging our childcare for Noah, we decided to go!

Come to find out, Taylor's band is booked locally at a lot of the stops
for the American Idol tour, and Taylor always goes and sings with them.
THAT is loyalty. So cool. :)

So we get there and LMBO played for about an hour. They are
an AMAZING group of musicians. WOW! We said we would
have come just to hear them play. So talented! About an 90 minutes
after we arrived, Taylor showed up! He sat upstairs for a few minutes, then
came down during the second set and played and sang probably 6 songs.
He was IN HIS ELEMENT. You could tell he loved being on the small bar
stage. One of the things I missed about him when he was on American Idol
is it seemed they had him quit doing the signature Taylor moves, like the jerks back,
saying, "hey!" and that blues-y face he does with his chin. Well, not in this setting.
He was the OLD Taylor, from the auditions. I could have listened to him
all night! And the best part is there were maybe 300 people there...and we were
about 10 feet from the stage. :)

Here are some photos and video clips from Antone's:



Here he is, jamming on the harmonica!





And here is my favorite clip, where he does lots of "Taylor" moves!
(Sorry it's sideways)













When Taylor left, we left. It was almost 1:00 a.m. and we were beat.
We found out later that during the next set...Bucky, Chris, Ace, and Elliott
all sang!! (BIG BOOOHOOOO!) There were supposedly some record execs there, filming and scouting, so they were doing some singing for them. SO sorry we
missed it, but we were tired. If we had KNOWN they were coming, though, we
definitely would have stayed, ha. :)

OK, so that is my American Idol post! Now, that was a lot of work...so leave me a comment! :D

- Jennifer

"Seek to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life."
- Alexander MacLaren

24 comments:

Jana said...

GREAT pics & video, I just loved seeing them all and especially the ones of stud-muffin Ace!! I'm TOTALLY BUMMIN' that you missed seeing the guys sing at Antone's but you still a night chock full of AI excitement though! I'm so happy for you! I'm gonna send your blog link to a good friend of mine who is Taylor's #1 fan in FLorida, she'll just love seeing this.

Anonymous said...

Awesome pics and videos Jen! :) I had so much fun at the conect too! Can't believe Elliott was singing with gum in his mouth! Ha!

Cheryl Wray said...

What an AWESOME post!! Those are just great pictures and comments from the show! A show came through Birmingham but, as you can imagine with Taylor being from here, tickets went FAST and we couldn't get any!
I'm so glad you got to go see and hear Taylor's band. They are awesome! The play around town here a lot, at our city festival, etc. (Taylor with them, of course, for many years!) I really love to see him playing like that--it's definitely his element!

Kim said...

That sounds like you had an awesome evening. I love your picture with Will. He was the one that reminded me of Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) from The Wonder Years!

Kimber McGray said...

that rocks jen. what fun and you got some great photos and videos.

thanks for sharing!!!

Angela said...

Thaks for sharing! Looks like a fab time! :)

Trinka said...

Wow thanks for the video and the photos....I just love Taylor Hicks and was a fan from the start.

Scrappersher said...

WOW thanks for all the video and picutres. I voted for Taylor from the start and my 2nd favorite is Mandisa. It looks like you had a great time at the concert and afterwards. What a find to find out he was playing after the concert!!!

Lamech said...

I'm not the biggest Ace fan by far, but there was a moment at the big show Jen didn't mention that really got to me. There was a little girl about 4 years old in the row in front of us with her mom. When Ace entered the stage he would point at folks in the crowd and give little waves. It looked like he pointed right at the little girl and waved, and she waved back, then turned to look her mom in the eye and you could see the response in her face -- she thought Ace waved at her and her little heart simply melted. Absolutely precious.

My favorite moments were the Elliot/Chris duet of Nickelback's "Savin' Me", and some of the songs the LMBO band did at Antone's. Their stuff even without Taylor was amazing at times, especially a boogie-woogie piano version of the Allman Bros' "Whipping Post."

Anonymous said...

Jen,
I've been waiting for you AI post. How awesome to see Taylor and his band. Lucky you!
I saw the concert here in Los Angeles in August. I took my daughter and some friends for her 12th birthday. It was the girls first concert. We all had so much fun. Taylor and Chris were awesome, Paris and Mandisa were fun. Ace wore an autographed Lakers jersey (the concert was at Staples Center - home of the Lakers) and threw it in the crowd when he was done. Did Bucky throw his hat? We didn't have a camera though - my battery was dead!!! My daughter would DIE for copies of your pics.
Helen

Anonymous said...

YOU LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY GIRL!!! WOW TO SEE TAYLOR AT THE BAR AFTER THE CONCERT...OH I WOULD HAVE MELTED RIGHT THERE IN MY WINE COOLER!!! YOU ARE A TRULY BLESSED WOMAN!!

Anonymous said...

wow those are amazing thanks for sharing.

Candi said...

Jen, THANK YOU for doing this for us!!! what a GREAT blog post. LOVED the video (especially of Ace and Chris). You got some REALLY AWESOME shots too!!!!!!

Leonore said...

Awesome Jen! Thank you for sharing all of that! LOVED the ACE videos & pictures! =)

Anonymous said...

WOW Jennifer! LOVED your recap, photos and video! I saw them a couple weeks ago in SJ, and LOVED the show sooo much!!! I've seen all the concerts so far, and gotta say that this was my fave. I LOVED the Clay/Rueben show, but Rueben was throwin up backstage, so it turned more into the Clay show. (Clay was my fave, so worked well for me)

Can't wait to see what next year brings!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the wonderful recap of the concert. I can't wait to show my family. They are going to just love all your great pictures and videos. We are still very tired from the concert. Have a wonderful day. I want a camera like yours. Do you know where David got it?

Heather said...

Wow . .. thanks for sharing the videos and pics. Alaina loved the sideways one! tehehe

Mandisa's my favorite . . . for the reasons you mentioned.

Just so jealous you got to go!

Anonymous said...

Wow!! How fun!!! You got some great pictures! Thanks for sharing it all!

Anonymous said...

Oh how fun Jennifer! And the after club sounds like a great place...too cool! Too bad you missed the other guys though. Such fun videos and pictures...thanks for sharing! ;)

Jenn said...

How fun!!! I would love to go to this! You got some great shots!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Looks like you had a fabulous time and how cool that you got to go to Antone's afterwards! I'm still heartbroken that they didn't come to SLC this year. Thanks for a taste of what we missed.

Sophia

Anonymous said...

Just ran across your blog and truly loved your recap of AI! Loved your gallery as well - WRMK is one of my FAV lines right now.

Anonymous said...

WOW WOW WOW WOW!!!!!!
Love all the pics! Looks like a blast!

Thanks for sharing!!

Anonymous said...

WOW! You lucky! :-D

I am so jealous! That looked like SO MUCH FUN! I am glad you got to go experience that! What an awesome memory!