I Yelled at a Lady.

This could also be titled "Brad Paisley Concert Review". The two events will forever be inseparable in my mind.

Thanksgiving morning, I got on-line and found that the Paisley concert in Louisville had just been announced. From the Brad Paisley web site, you could order advance tickets before they went on sale to the general public. Join the fan club and you would be guaranteed tickets in the first 20 rows. The catch? You had to pick up the tickets at the will call booth two hours before the show. So, you didn't know where your seats would be, but you knew they would be good seats. Is stuck outside the arena considered a good seat?

The brain trust working the will call booth had trouble with the concept from the fan club. No matter how clearly you told them you ordered through the Paisley website, they kept searching Ticketmaster orders. So, when the good-natured, but dim-witted customer "service" rep finally caught on (after 40 minutes) that I didn't buy tickets through Ticketmaster she said "Oh, you bought through the fan club. That's different"…that's when I snapped.

"I HAVE TOLD YOU THAT THREE TIMES NOW!!!!!"
I reached through the will call window and beat her to death with her Dr. Scholl's inserts. OK, I didn't beat her to death. But I did yell at her. Loudly. Making-nearby-people-uncomfortable kind of loud. It's been a while since I've yelled at somebody like that. It felt good…and bad….all at the same time. Mostly bad.
Then she comes back with "We don't show anything in the system for you. You'll have to call the Fan Club". Call the Fan Club? 5:45 on a Saturday night? No problem there, huh?
The Will Call Manager noticed the commotion and came over to help. She searched for the tickets using my e-mail address. The tickets weren't in my name, they were in the wife's name. They weren't even in the wife's name. They were in the wife's name misspelled! The good news is we weren't stuck on the steps of the arena listening to the Brad Paisley station on Pandora on my I-phone. We got to go in and see the show, and what a show it was.

I don't always get the reaction I expect when I give the wife a gift. She is always thankful and appreciative. Just not gushing. The wife doesn't do gushy. That was not the case this time. As we continued to walk closer and closer to the stage, she got giddier and giddier. The wife doesn't do "giddy". She even said I "rock" in a Facebook post.

We were on the 8^th row on an aisle next to the runway that went to the center of the crowd from the main stage. We watched the show leaning on the stage.

The concert itself was a lot of fun. The opening act to the opening act was a guy I didn't know and don't remember. He sang a lot of songs about being drunk. The next act was Hootie (aka Darius Rucker). He was amazing. One of the top five male voices in modern music (IMHO). He high-fived me not once, but twice during his show. Here is the hand. I've not washed it since.

Brad Paisley proved to be an impressive entertainer. He is a surprisingly talented guitarist and really knows how to work the crowd. His signature move to the crowd is tossing guitar picks to the audience. We ended up with three of them. Paisley placed one in the wife's hand and tossed another directly to Sam. 

Paisley tossig pick to Sam.
FOCUS!



Paisley really seems to get it. He expressed sincere thanks to the crowd several times during the concert and gave honor to the pioneers of country music a number of times as well.

I am still not a big country music fan. And while Paisley's music won't be on the "most played" list on my i-pod, I really admire some of his work. "Alcohol" is very well written for such a light-hearted song and "Letter to Me" makes me cry each and every time I hear it…the concert on Saturday was not an exception. (Before you mock me, you try to listen to it and think about your teenage son. You'll be hunting down Kleenex in no time). I would definitely go to another Paisley concert in the future, though I don't know that the experience could come close to what we had this weekend. For an encore, I'll have to find a way to get the wife on stage with Paisley for a duet. Think that would keep her happy?