Friday, August 31, 2012

The Band Perry & Easton Corbin in Concert!

Hubs and I got a rare date night out alone this past Wednesday. A few months ago, we bought concert tickets. We originally wanted tickets to the Jason Aldean concert with Luke Bryan, but they sold it so fast! So, we decided to go see The Band Perry and Easton Corbin. We like The Band Perry, I love the family aspect of the group and they always come out with fresh, new, great music. 


Frank worked a half day Wednesday so we could get on the road to the fair where the concert was. It was only an hour away but we wanted to take advantage of the fact that our concert tickets included gate admission, an went early to walk around and enjoy some fair food. The kids were at daycare until 5 that night, and one of their teachers from daycare agreed to babysit them that evening. I was a little sad that we wouldn't be there to pick them up from daycare. It was the first time ever that we didn't pick them up, and I wasn't sure how well they would deal with that or if they really understood what was happening when I was trying to explain to them that their teacher would bring them to our house and hang out with them and tuck them in at night. 

We got to the fair, walked around a bit, and looked at some of the exhibits. Hubs played a couple games and won me a little stuffed snake. Silly, but still cute! I tried fried Oeros for the first time and found out that all the fuss wasn't for much. I heard they were "sooo good" from friends and even strangers, but they really weren't all that great or impressive. Oh well. At least I tried them and now I know! ;)

We poked into a cute little martini bar that was at the fair and hubs enjoyed his favorite beverage...a nice, cold, beer. ;) Then we went and saw zoo animals, barnyard animals, and some other cute little shows and booths.






This little chick hatching exhibit was soooo cute! I LOVED it!


The baby piglets were too cute for words:


Soon after we got there and walked around a bit, we heard Easton Corbin doing his sound check for the show that night. We snuck a peek through the outside gates and snapped a couple pics. Of course they are far away and the bleacher legs are in the way, but you can still see him! He has the red hate on ;)



We grabbed some dinner around 5 that evening. We shared some french fries and each had a delicious fair burger. We popped back in to the martini bar so hubs could have another beer, and walked through the bottom of the grandstand to see the different booths set up. One was of homemade hair bows and headbands and other products and we grabbed a cute little new bow for Merasia. :) When we were done there we saw that the ushers were opening up the gates to go take our seats so we decided to go ahead in and find out seats and just wait for the fun to start!

This is the view from our seats (without zoom):


Not bad! We were in row J (10th row!!) in seats 17 and 18. :) Here's a pic from our seats, zoomed in. This was Easton Corbin's band getting ready for the show to start:


Finally, the show began!








Halfway through his set, Easton thanked everyone for coming out to the show and said he was going to be signing autographs and meeting everyone after his set and before The Band Perry began. Hubs and I decided to book it over to the souvenir table and buy a photograph of Easton Corbin for him to autograph, and got one of The Band Perry just in case they were going to sign after their show too. We were 5th or 6th in the meet and greet line and after he finished the last few songs of his set, he came over! We got his autograph and a photo with him. He was so sweet and nice, and shook Frank's hand and Frank told him he appreciated his music, which clearly meant a lot for Easton to hear that. It was WAY cool!



By the time the stage crew was done setting up for The Band Perry, it was dark outside, which made it even more exciting to see the lights and stage and the videos playing behind the band. The show opened with a sort of behind the scenes video of the band playing on the screens behind where the band would stand and perform. A pre recorded bit started with Kimberly's voice saying "Daddy rocked us to sleep with the Rolling Stones..." followed by one of the guys saying "Mama woke us up with Loretta Lynn," and finally, the other brother saying "So we get it honest."

Then all of sudden those familiar voices were live and saying "We are The Band Perry and we play country music!" (It's their "catch phrase") The band came walking out as they said that, and they started right in! They sang all of their well known radio songs as well as some we hadn't heard before since we don't have their album, but it made me want to buy their album because every single song was so catchy and good! They sang us a new song that's going to be on their upcoming new album as well and sang a medley of oldies but goodies like "Fat Bottom Girls" by Queen, "Free Fallin," and "Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp.

It was a truly amazing show!! I am SOOOOO glad we went to it, and if you haven't seen them in concert yet, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you do! Their stage presence is amazing, their singing and musical talent is incredible, they interacted with the crowd a ton, and they rocked the crap out of that stage and the crowd!

Halfway through the show they had a little "contest" to see which side of the crowd could scream louder and that side would get an autographed t shirt thrown to them. The side we were on won the contest but the shirt only made it to the first or second row, LOL! It was still fun, regardless! 

Another neat thing about it was that they told us that when they were kids, their parents used to pack them all up every summer and drive them all the way from Alabama up here to the beautiful mountains of Vermont to vacation. I thought that was neat to know!

We got some amazing photos of the show.....and when we thought they were done (they walked off stage, said thank you, etc.) we headed over to the side of the backstage gate just to see if they were going to come out and meet fans or not. Then the whole crowd started chanting "Perry! Perry! Perry!" and they came back out and sand 3 or 4 more songs! It was so awesome of them, and so much fun!

They never did come out and meet fans, but that's okay. We had a blast, regardless and did get to meet one famous performer, so we were set. hehehehe ;)

If I had the chance, I would definitely go to another Band Perry show! 

Enjoy the photos! ;)