Paisley Park!

Friday night we attended the Brad Paisley concert at the MN State Fair along with Tracy and Rob. We expected rain all day (we were actually at the fair for about 6 hours prior to the show...) and luckily had nothing but great weather!

When in Rome...how many chances do you get to legitimately wear a cowboy hat?

The show opened with Chuck Wicks. Before this I honestly couldn't tell you what he sang, except it turns out I really had heard two of the songs on the radio. He did a fairly decent hour and was a good kick-off to the evening.

Then it was Jewel's turn. This was something - what? I'm not quite sure yet. First of all, none of us could understand her. Try as I might, I never heard a hard consonant come out of her mouth. Tracy said Jewel reminded her of Beaker from Sesame Street, if not the Swedish Chef. Then Jewel would announce, "I'd like to you to follow me on a song you don't know..." Tracy said she couldn't even follow her with the songs we did know! And the songs we did recognize, well, they were played/sung at about half the speed you hear them on the radio and lasted about twice as long. And lest you think it was just us being slightly rude - (what with Tracy yawning 50 times, Rob looking at pictures of his kids stored on his phone, and Mike sneezing non-stop) she actually got booed by some people behind us when she came out to sing a duet with Brad Paisley and there were plenty of sarcastic remarks between each of her songs. But I must give her credit - she's quite a yodeler! That ended her concert and it was the best part - not just because she was done.

But finally the main event - Brad Paisley! Yee-haw! Or as we say in Minnesota, "Uffda! That guy can sing!" Great concert from beginning to end. And can he play the guitar? Yikes! His band wasn't too shabby either. His fiddler/violinist gave a little intro to one of the songs and should have received quite an ovation on his own - amazing! At least Tracy and I cheered loudly for him. It was just good music. I mean, yes it was fun all around, but the musicians really had the capacity to show of their stuff - and they took every advantage - they weren't just strumming along in the background.

I don't think we got out of there until about 11pm - after being at the fair for 9 hours, we were all tired! But, I'll save the fair posting for later next week. We have to head back with the kids so we can all grab our food-on-a-stick fill. Maddie and I plan to try the Chocolate-Dipped-Bacon. Stay tuned.