What?! A concert review from me?! But I only do movies. Why would I ever branch out into a concert review? Cuz it’s my blog darnit and I’ll write what I want.
I’m no music connoisseur. I’ve gone to only a handful of concerts in my life and most of those have been Country. But this weekend I watched the Charleston, WV version of Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Carnival Ride.
I saw both Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban, but I’m going to write up the concerts in separate reviews so I can show off more awesome pictures. The stage has a catwalk that comes out into the middle of the arena and our seats were right on the cat walk halfway down. It was amazingly close.
First up was Carrie and she had a lot of costume changes. I’ve never been to a concert where there was even one costume change, much less 5.
Carrie only has 2 albums, so she really doesn’t have a whole lot to work with. She pretty much ran through every song she has in her 1.5 hours on stage.
Although she pulled out the guitar a few times, Carrie is clearly not a guitarist. She is, first and foremost, a vocalist.
I watched Carrie on American Idol back in the day (a whopping 3 years ago) and I’ve always thought her voice was pretty amazing. She proves it at her concert. I have never heard any artist sound so good live. Her voice was flawless.
Some credit probably goes to her sound techs for making sure she sounded good above the music, but you can’t ignore the fact that she just has an amazing and consistent voice. Other than the screams, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between a song off of her album and the way she sings it live.
Although her voice is a wonder to behold, she clearly hasn’t gotten the hang of live performance. She used the catwalk sparingly and even when she did, she looked uncomfortable.
The guards wouldn’t let anyone stand at the catwalk, so you had to stand at your seat. There was no chance of getting her to shake your hand or flash you a smile.
She seemed pretty self-conscious about who she did pick out in the audience. They were almost always children. Guess she doesn’t wanna give any stalker-types the wrong idea…
Those are minor nitpicks for a great concert, though. She was a lot of fun to watch and when she was on the main stage she looked comfortable and happy.
She apparently has good fashion sense, too, because my wife walked away with a couple of fashion ideas. Of course, I didn’t even notice…
If you don’t like country, then obviously this might not be your cup of tea. But if you do want to see a display of some of the finest vocals in the business, you can’t go wrong with Carrie Underwood.