American Saturday Night

So when I got some birthday money a few months ago, I knew exactly how I wanted to spend it. I got online right away and got tickets to the Brad Paisley concert. The concert took place Saturday, September 19 and was SO much fun! It was an adventure getting there, however. It was at the Usana ampitheater, which we had never been to before. We got directions on google maps, had our babysitter here an hour and a half before the concert was to start, and we were on our way. For some reason, the directions took us to the east side of the valley and not the west. We got to where it was taking us and all we saw was a residential area. Luckily, Ryan has a smart phone that we used to figure out the real directions. Once we were going the right way, we got stuck in all the slow traffic that was also going to the concert. Our 45-minute drive to the concert turned into a 2-hour drive! We got there just after 8:00. I guess that's why they have other artists that perform before the main one comes on -- for those of us who come late! Luckily, Brad had 2 artists go before him, and we got there in time to see most of the songs the 2nd guy performed.
Our seats were amazing! When I picked them out on the seating chart, they looked decent -- in the middle section back, fairly close to the center. But I hadn't realized that there were 3 sections of seats, and then just as much if not more seating in the grass behind all the regular seats! When we got there we didn't realize there were 2 entrances, and so we came in the one that was for all the grass seats. It took us a while to wind through all the crowd and find where we could go to get to our own seats. But coming in the very back made me appreciate how fantastic of a view we had! Ryan summed up how close we were by saying, "There is nowhere on the stage he could have gone that I couldn't have thrown a ball and hit him."
It was an outdoor concert. We got a little rained on, but overall were very lucky. I thought the clouds were totally going to dump on us, and we could see lightning off in the distance. We got a little wet, but for the most part the rain stayed away from our little venue. Maybe it liked listening to the concert as much as we did and didn't want to ruin it :)

One of the reasons I am a big Brad Paisley fan is because I think so many of his songs are relevant and clever. It turns out that his concerts are the same! This picture is during his song "Celebrity", which is about how so many people act out of control when they become famous. Throughout the song, the screens looked like a big version of Guitar Hero. He even had some country stars, like Taylor Swift, "playing the game".
I've never been a huge fan of the guitar. Probably because I was so focused on playing the piano, I thought that the guitar was a lame competitor to the piano. I have changed my opinion, largely in part to Brad Paisley. He is absolutely amazing at the guitar! He put on quite the show! And I think he changed guitars with just about every song (he performed for 2 hours, so that's a lot of guitars)!