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July 7, 2006
Kelly Clarkson, wooo!
We heard that countless times last night, which shouldn't be too surprising since we were at a Kelly Clarkson concert. Mike got a ticket to it from a friend who'd gotten it free and didn't want it, so I bought a ticket too, and off we went. If I were going to make a list of shows I wanted to go to, Kelly Clarkson probably wouldn't be in the top 10, or even 20, but we had a blast. The rain had stopped about halfway through the day and had cooled things off to the point where I was actually shivering for most of the concert, and the ground hadn't dried completely yet, so it was a good thing we'd brought a couple of blankets. Rooney opened for her, and while they weren't bad, they weren't anything to write home about either. About half an hour after Rooney finished their set, Kelly took the stage and put on a surprisingly good show. She's a good performer - she has lots of energy and great stage presence, and her music is even more infectious live than it is on the radio. One of her guitarists in particular really helped set the mood of the show, IMO, and helped add an extra bit of contagion to the songs. She did some new stuff from her as-of-yet-unreleased album mixed in with some of her older stuff, and when the entire crowd started singing, it was pretty impressive. Obviously a lot of the people there identified with "Since U Been Gone" because, from what I could see, the only people not singing their hearts out to that song when she closed the concert with it were the straight guys. We stopped by one of the merchandise booths on our way out to get shirts (my goal is to get a shirt from every concert we go to, but we'll see how that plays out), and Mike was happy to see that there were three guy shirts for him to choose from.
Sadly, leaving the concert was not as enjoyable as the actual concert was. The parking lot was a total clusterfuck, and it took us at least 45 minutes to get out onto the road. Once there, it was just as frustrating with one-lane roads, poorly-routed traffic, and cops re-routing traffic in different directions when we were two cars away from getting into the lane we needed to be in. Mike was driving, so he had to deal with most of it, but the irritation infected me as well. It's not like this is the first concert they've ever had there; you'd think they'd have gotten a reliable exit system in place by now. We're going to Ozzfest there in a month, and I'm sure trying to leave the parking lot then will be even more aggravating.
Posted by oracle at July 7, 2006 8:42 AM in concerts / entertainment / the third year