Concert Review: Paisley

I saw the Brad Paisley tour stop today here in Fresno, California. The Paisley Party was quite a rambunctious bunch. Now, I'm not a contemporary country fan, but my dad wanted to go and I'm always down for some speed yodeling and some bluesy guitar solos.

The show started punctually at 7:30 just like my ticket stub said. The opening act was Julianne Hough and I guess she was on Dancing with the Stars... I don't watch the show nor do I regularly listen to country radio, so I was out of the loop, but her set was nice. Her bass player played a new Fender five string Precision bass. I was a bit jealous... Oh well.

The next opening act was Chuck Wicks. Once again, another country act I had never heard of. The ladies in the crowd went crazy for him, but I felt he looked like he was just going through the motions and bit worn out (probably from constant touring).

Then my second reason for going, Jewel. She had a very nice performance mixing in her late nineties hits with her new "country" songs. I really think that "Country Jewel" = Jewel + Lap Steel Guitar... but some might disagree. Right at the end she gave me what I wanted: a little taste of her "speed yodeling." It was awesome. I'm a sucker for oddball stuff like that. Yodeling and Glockenspiels and Theremins, ah my life would be complete...

Brad Paisley had quite an amazing set. His screen behind him was very sharp and it was used amazingly. Right at the beginning there seemed to be a silhouette of Paisley rising from a trap door of the stage, then BAM all the lights flash and he was magically at the front of the stage! It took me a few moments before I realized what had happened. Then later, he sang his duet song with a video and audio recording of Allison Krauss, my dad quickly leaned over to me and stated, "Wait, she's on tour with Robert Plant right now..." With Paisley standing next to the life size reproduction of Krauss, it was fairly believable. Paisley's final time shifted duet was with B.B. King on his bluesy jam of a finale. The video of King said "Streaming Live Via Satellite from Las Vegas" in the corner, although I'm sure it was a recording, Still awesome either way. I loves me some blues.

There's more stuff to it, but overall, I'm really satisfied with the concert. I had a good time and the music-tainment (highly choreographed/insanely pre-planned) was fun.

So I've come to realize: I would really like to be a touring guitar player or bass player for any of these big solo artists. Rock, blues, jazz, country, rock; I don't care, I can play it all (I'm not vain, I swear). I know they prep for about three months to get their entire stage performance etched into their minds, I would do that. I would love to tour the country, have the newest and coolest gear and possibly have the opportunity to eventually play my own music in front of lots of people some day.

You hear that record companies and touring industry? Guitar/bass player for hire! I'd much rather blog about that than sit around twiddling my thumbs and just blogging about concerts I see.

*sigh* Someday...



Well, in the now, I'm helping with a little performance/jam session for a friend. He was put in charge of entertainment for a little church fundraiser dinner and wanted to put together a band. It's really unorganized and I'm not really sure how the quality of the entertainment will be, but I'm have a worthwhile amount of fun jamming with friends. It should work out just fine.

There's also a film production company rolling through town next month and I'm going to try to snag a position as a Production Assistant or something. The only bummer is that the interview time runs into the setup time for the church dinner thing... I'm going to have to do some amazing time balancing to fit it all in.

For next month, Nicole and I have ticket for the Coldplay concert in San Jose. I'm very excited. So, there will probably be another concert review post next month-or-so. Yay for Coldplay!