"Country music is the people's music. It just speaks about real life and about truth and it tells things how they really are."

- Faith Hill

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Stuck Like Glue

Sugarland -- Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles
So I came across the new Sugarland music video for their single "Stuck Like Glue". I absolutely am in love with it. My sister and I were watching music videos the other day and we could not stop laughing when this one was shown. I mean, maybe it's just us seeing as how my brother didn't find it funny at all...but hey, to each his own right? I've been meaning to talk about it ever since I saw it. So first of all,


So, I absolutely love Sugarland. Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush are just awesome together. Seeing them in concert was my second favorite concert of the summer. They're so full of energy and they just like having a good time. Interacting with each other on stage, or say, in this video just makes you wonder how much fun they have together on tours. They seem like really funny and upbeat people who would probably be fun to hang out with.

I love this song and the video just made it that much better for me. You begin watching the video thinking that it's going to be about a couple who are say, "stuck like glue" to each other? But no, of course Sugarland mixes it up a bit. Turning a cute song into a hilarious video where a woman stalks and kidnaps the guy she's "stuck like glue" to with the help of her trusty sidekick Kristian Bush. The funny thing is Jennifer Nettles pulls it off in a way that's just so funny and she seems so innocent and happy the whole time that it makes it that much funnier. When she finds his phone lighting up with a girl Kim's face, I actually felt a bit sorry for her at the end...that is, until she punches him in the face for "cheating" on her. The fact that it bothers her that he talks to other girls is hilarious because he seems so scared of her the entire time. Basically, she's delusional, and  I love it.

This video has actually climbed to the list of my top music videos. I'll keep posting more interesting ones as I come across them. In the meantime, does anyone have any music videos I should check out? I'd love to watch some.




By the way! 
For those who like Sugarland or are interested in hearing more music by them then look for their new album coming out October 19th  
called
"The Incredible Machine" 
I've heard a few songs from  it already when I went to the concert and let me tell you, they don't disappoint. I've already preordered my copy :)

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

American Ride

So Saturday was the Toby Keith and Trace Adkins concert with special guest....Jaron and the Long Road to Love!! Let me tell you, the concert was amazing of course. I'll start from the beginning.

We got there and only missed one song by Jaron and the Long Road to Love because of the lines to get in. The place was packed. It was unbelievable actually. Now, for those of you who don't know Jaron and the Long Road to Love, he has a single out called "Pray For You" and it's kind of brilliant. It's a song all about the bad things he wishes upon his ex but he sings it in such a playful way that you can't really be offended by it or judge him too harshly. I personally love it. Does that make me a bad person? Well, I hope not. Jaron performed with a keyboard alone on stage for the first twenty minutes of the concert. He sang a song that I happen to love called "That's Beautiful to Me". He described it as being a song about the little things in a relationship that sometimes may be annoying but that he finds make it even more beautiful. It's cute.

After Jaron came on, they set the stage for Trace Adkins. Now, I love a lot of Trace Adkins's songs but I can't say I'm one of his biggest fans. I'll listen to them on the radio and I have them on my mp3 player, but he's not one of those artists I'd immediately turn on when I pick up my mp3 player like, say, Rascal Flatts. However, he was awesome. There's something to be said about a 48 year old guy with an extremely long ponytail walking around on stage with his cowboy hat and partly unbuttoned black shirt opening with a song called  "Whoop a Man's Ass" and going on to sing a song called "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk." He's just a badass. It's the only way I can describe him and I never use that word. And his voice!! When he first started speaking to the audience my friend and I looked at each other and just had to laugh. He has an awesome speaking voice. Picture his singing voice...except talking. It was just the kind of voice I wouldn't mind listening to for a while, deep and classic country. He was a lot better than I expected and if it hadn't been for two older women dancing in front of me and blocking my view, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, he got the crowd more than enough excited to see Toby Keith. Some of the songs on Trace Adkins's set list were: "Marry For Money", "Brown Chicken, Brown Cow" (which he described as a love song), "This Ain't No Love Song" (which actually is a love song and it's amazing), "Hillbilly Bone", "Hot Mama", and more. The whole performance was great and I think I'm going to have to start listening to him a lot more now.


Then there was Toby Keith... ah, Toby Keith. What to say about Toby Keith? ... He's amazing. He knows how to get a crowd pumped up and he did. The man is awesome. From the moment he appeared on stage riding in a pickup truck that was raised on a platform high above the stage, he caught and held the audience's attention for the rest of the show. Out of the insane amount of songs he has, I think he picked a lot of the best ones to sing for his set list. Including: "As Good As I Once Was", "Who's Your Daddy?", "How Do You Like Me Now?", "Trailerhood", "Whiskey Girl", "American Ride" (of course. It's the name of the tour), "God Love Her", "I Wanna Talk About Me",  and more. Along with these he sang "Weed With Willie" which was good except for the fact that in my opinion it was a little inappropriate given the two very young boys sitting behind me wondering what he was referring to when he exclaimed that he "could smell it now". But hey, it's a concert and it's to be expected I suppose. Speaking of Willie! Toby Keith sang the song "Beer For My Horses" that he originally sang with Willie Nelson and didn't disappoint when he played clips from the music video of Willie Nelson singing his parts. I was quite excited about this seeing as how it's one of my favorite songs and it just wouldn't be the same with out Willie. Along with the songs I listed, he sang "I Love This Bar" after introducing his bar that is soon to be opening in Foxborough, Massachusetts at Patriot Place called  "Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill". He mentioned that some of the New England Patriots players promised him that they will be stopping by every now and then to have a few drinks. Did the crowd go crazy? Absolutely. He ended the concert with his encore singing "American Soldier" and finally, the song I had been dying to hear, "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)".
Toby Keith is known for his patriotism and his performances for the men and women stationed overseas. Trace Adkins came and joined him for this song and the crowd went wild. The reason I was so excited wasn't just because I love the song so much (though I do). It was because I could *not* wait to be there to feel the energy that goes along with hearing that song performed live. I watch the music video and I always imagine being there to hear him sing it, but it was different when actually being there. I know I use this word a lot...but it was amazing.

So that was the last concert of Toby Keith's tour and it happened to be the last on my list of summer concerts. It would have been nice if I had started this blog before most of the other concerts so I could have talked about them, but what can ya do?

See ya!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Rascal Flattin' All Night

Joe Don, Gary, Jay
So I went to the Rascal Flatts concert on Sunday at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts and let me start out by saying that it was AMAZING. I was actually blown away by the end of the concert and if I could love them anymore than I did before, then I absolutely do. See, Rascal Flatts is probably one of my favorite groups. I know every word to every song they sing and their concert was the concert that I was looking forward to more than any of the others I have been to.

The concert was opened by Chris Young, whose performance I actually missed. He played for twenty minutes and I actually spent that time in line waiting to buy a Rascal Flatts t-shirt. *Yes, it's worth every penny of the thirty dollars I paid for it* I wasn't too upset by missing Chris Young's performance though. While I enjoy his music, I'm not caught up with his recent stuff and besides, I was FAR to excited to see Rascal Flatts anyway.

By the time I got to my seat Kellie Pickler was about to perform. I love Kellie Pickler and she didn't disappoint, even despite the fact that she kept telling us she was under the weather. She opened with "Best Days of Your Life" and played six other songs including: "Rocks Instead of Rice" (a song dedicated to her ex, "wherever he may be"), "Things that Never Cross A Man's Mind", "Making me Fall in Love Again", "I Wonder", "Don't You Know You're Beautiful", and ending with "Red High Heels". She also sang "Jolene" and "Two Doors Down" by Dolly Parton, which were just amazing. It was actually incredible to hear her sing them if only for the reason that she sounded SO much like Dolly Parton. The selection of songs she chose for the concert was great and had Rascal Flatts not been up next, I actually probably would have wanted to hear more. However, Rascal Flatts WERE performing next so therefore, I could hardly wait any longer.

Rascal Flatts were introduced and I was in my glory. They opened with "Bob That Head" (from where the title of this post came) and went on to sing twenty-four other songs. Yes, I said twenty-four. Seeing as how this is their ten year anniversary they sang a few songs from every album they've ever come out with. They said they would fit as many songs as possible in the time they had, and they didn't disappoint. I don't even know how to explain this concert other than amazing. The backdrops on the stage would change depending on the song and were so vivid in detail that when I wasn't watching the Gary, Jay and Joe Don, my eyes were glued to the backgrounds. They varied depending on the song, sometimes showing rain pouring down, sun shining brightly, nature scenes from the country, or words that had to do with the songs they were singing.

In the middle of the concert it was just Gary, Joe Don, and Jay on stage, with Jay on the keyboard. They played songs such as "Take It To The Limit" by the Eagles, "God Bless The Broken Road", a bit of "Old Time Rock and Roll" by Bob Seger, and a little bit of gospel music that they sang when they first started off singing in the choir at church. Their voices, just the three of them and the piano, were absolutely incredible together. The range of Gary's voice blew me away and they never once went out of tune throughout the entire concert. Mostly during this part they joked around with the audience and each other.

Oh, and can I just say that they are three hilarious guys? When they got together on stage and cracked jokes and stuff they had all of us cracking up in our seats. Not that we were in our seats for long... There was no way you could sit down through that whole concert. There was way too much energy during the performances to even get the chance to relax.

I wish I could just talk about every single detail of the entire concert but it would take WAY too long. So I'll quickly talk about some of my favorite moments.

1. The part when just the three of them were on stage with the keyboard. They would keep repeating "Take it to the limit, take it to the limit, take it to the limit one more time..." over and over and had us all laughing hysterically when Gary would say "let's do it again!" and the audience would break out into the line once more.
2. During "Fast Cars and Freedom" Gary lifted a little girl onto the stage and walked her up and down a few times as she gave the audience high fives like a little rock star. After twirling her around a few times, she gave him the biggest hug and he helped her back down to her parents. Maybe I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, but it was SO cute and it helped that "Fast Cars and Freedom" happens to be one of my favorite songs by them.
3. During "These Days" and a few other songs they had the pouring rain in the background and every time it added something to the song that made it amazing.
4. Towards the end they began playing cover songs such as "Long Time" by Boston, "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas, and "Free Ride" by Jefferson Airplane. At this point they had the audience going crazy and a little boy was taken on stage, probably no older than six, and he did the robot dance as Rascal Flatts performed. I'm actually pretty sure his t-shirt said "I am robot kid" on it, or so my friend said.
5. The entire concert.... Yes I know this isn't a highlight but I still can't get over how amazing the whole concert was. The only thing that would have made it better is if I had a closer seat to the stage.

I would have loved to have given a link for every song they sang but quite frankly, there were SO many.

Well, that's it for this post. Saturday night is the Toby Keith and Trace Adkins concert. While I'm extremely excited for this, I'm afraid there's no way it's ever going to live up to the Rascal Flatts concert, but I'll certainly still post about it after I go.

Well, until next time.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Feels Like Today

For my first post I suppose I'll tell you something about myself. I'm a twenty year old college student with an intense love of country music. In fact, Cat Country 98.1 is basically the only station allowed on in my car. Other than 102.5 WKLB that is. I first became interested in country when I was fifteen and took a trip to Dallas, Texas with my school. During an opening ceremony Emerson Drive performed a concert for us. At first I was far too excited about the trip to even care about who was playing, especially a group I had never heard of. However, I was hooked by the end of the performance. I went home and downloaded their CD's. That didn't mean I liked country music as a whole, of course. That is, until I heard one of their songs on the radio and I discovered the country music station.  I was completely hooked and the rest is history. Nowadays, I rarely find a country song that I don't like. And that's all you really need to know about me. :)

This blog is going to consist of a few things. Mainly my thoughts and opinions on country music today. Music videos I like or dislike, favorite songs, favorite artists, and a few reviews on a couple of performances I see. I know country music is a broad topic but I'm going to try  to narrow it down the best I can. Now, there may be thoughts or opinions that others don't agree with. Actually, I'm sure of it. But hey, we're all different. I hope at least that I'll be able to keep your interest.

Now I think I'm going to have to express a few reasons why I love country music so much.

1. I can actually understand the words the artists are singing. I feel like a lot of music these days I have to struggle to understand what the person is saying, without really understanding until I look up lyrics.
2. Most country songs aren't offensive. Maybe they're out there, but I've yet to hear a country song that swears. That's saying something I think.
3. They sing songs I can relate to. Songs about love, loss, and life in general. A lot of people may think that country western music is all about beer, tractors, and dogs but it's a lot more than that. Or well, maybe a lot of people don't think that but it's what my sister said to me when I first became interested in country a few years ago. I like that I can find a country song that relates to whatever it is I'm feeling on any given day. I can guarantee that. Oh, and p.s. my sister actually likes a few country songs now too. :)
4. The talent. Most country singers don't need computer editing to make their voices sound good. They genuinely sound good! All of the concerts I've been to (Keith Urban, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Sugarland, Lady Antebellum, Tim McGraw, Craig Morgan, etc.) have been amazing. They all sound even better than they do on their cd's, and that's saying something.
5. I just genuinely enjoy the music. A lot of it is catchy and fun. I'm not saying that other music isn't catchy, cause trust me, it is, but I find that whenever I'm having a bad day I can always be cheered up by a little country music.

That's really all I have to say today. In an hour I'm going to a Rascal Flatts/Kellie Pickler/Chris Young concert. Yes, I'm extremely excited. I'm sure I'll post about it sometime this week.

Until then!