Brad Paisley

First I must tell you that another of my friends has gotten a tattoo. Debbie just got a butterfly on her shoulder. She still has it covered, but Troy showed me a photo last night on the way to the concert. So eventually I guess I'll be the final holdout.

Honestly, I went to the Brad Paisley concert because Lauren wanted to go, and I wanted to see Darius Rucker. Darius was wondermous, and he even sang Hootie and the Blowfish's "Let Her Cry."

The only country music I hear is crossover stuff that shows up on my pop radio station or songs that Lauren has on CD, so I only knew two Brad Paisley songs and recognized about three others. Still I thought it was a great show. Brad is a guitar master. And who doesn't love a guy who has several Guitar Hero/Rock Band elements in his visual effects arsenal? I was completely faked out by the two hi-def video performances. Just sayin'. When we couldn't figure out who the guy was who came out and sang "Miles and Miles of Texas" with him, we decided the guy was probably just a hologram anyway. Haha.

The animation sequence was probably my favorite part of the whole night. Excellent job on that. He's cute, he sings and he draws?! Wow.

I was really impressed that he made a special effort to interact with children in the audience, touching their hands and giving them guitar picks, etc. At the end of the concert, he gave his hat to a little girl on her dad's shoulders. His hat, folks. She was thrilled. Very sweet.

When he sang "Alcohol" (one of the best all-time country songs), Darius and Dierks Bentley were on stage singing along. Darius showed us how "white people dance." A lovely Carlton Dance sort of thing. Nice. lol.

Here's a vid from the New Orleans performance. I'll switch it out if I see one from Austin. Darius' dance is at about 2:30. He does it again later.