Sunday, June 14, 2009

My Life Would Suck Without...Kelly



Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to see Kelly Clarkson perform at the UVU baseball stadium in Orem. I have been to a good amount of different kinds of concerts, but I don't think I've ever been to a pop concert before so this experience was a little new for me. Expecting to see a slew of teenage girls, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was among a good number of grown men in the audience. I thought I'd see maybe 10 guys, so you can imagine my surprise when there were about 100...out of several thousand. Although some rain fell during the show, Kelly made sure that nothing would dampen our spirits.

She was really entertaining, and really she is super sweet and feels really down to earth. A friend of mine who actually works events at the stadium was telling me today that she was supposed to perform for 90 minutes instead of the one hour show she ended up doing, but I think it felt like just the right amount of time. She played all of her big hits and several songs off of her new album. I was surprised at how much extra weight she had put on. I saw a live clip of her doing the song above which was only three months ago, but it seemed like she had put on at least extra 15-20 lbs since that time. I'm not saying it's good or bad, so don't jump all over me. I'm just saying. Still adorable though.

The stage was set in the outfield and it was general admission seating throughout the field. You know who really bug me? Mormons. It seemed like people thought that patches of grass could be reserved like church pews for stake conference just by setting down their blankets and then walking away. I went with a group and we had approached as near the stage as we could, found a little patch of grass, and stood there until she came on. After about twenty minutes of being there, a woman appearing to be in her late 30s approached our grouping of people. We were standing near the fence that was as close as we could get to the stage, and there were several groups of people standing there. She started talking, but didn't seem to have an intended target, so I engaged her in conversation which went something like this:

Lady: Are you guys planning on standing the whole time? Because we got here early to put down our blankets and with you guys standing there we can't see anything.
Me: Well these are general admission tickets so anyone can have a seat anywhere they like.
Lady: Yeah, but we got here first blah blah blah I'm going to start being a moron to a complete stranger...
Me: Okay, well if you want to go ahead and ask everyone else that's standing around here, and also the people that are standing in front of us to sit down, then maybe we'll go ahead and sit down too.
Lady: Blah blah blah you better sit your asses down blah blah blah (leave in a huff).

I just couldn't believe that she really thought that she was going to be able to sit down for the entire concert. It's festival seating, which really means no seating unless you're going to go to the back. It's a pop concert! Come on, lady! And although people are more likely to be rude to a stranger than to someone that they know, it still surprises me when it happens.

I kind of live for concerts and live events, so that's probably why I enjoyed it so much. Plus, I dare you not to like this song:


No comments: