Back when I was a freshman in college, I made a new friend on my dorm floor. He lived in upstate New York. I was from southwestern Pennsylvania. He was one of the first new friends I made in college, and he became my first real out-of-state friend.
We had a great dorm floor, and I made a lot of friends that year. But we all retreated home for summer break, and that meant none of us would have any contact with each other until school started up again in the fall. When I was in college, it was just a hair before e-mail was gaining nation wide acceptance. (Okay, I am old...but I'm still not THAT old lol).
That is, I lost contact with *most* of my new friends. Except for my upstate NY friend. We decided to write snail mail letters to each other a couple times that summer, just to keep in contact. We would proceed to do that every summer during college.
Our letters were quite entertaining - and always something to look forward to in the mail. We would title our stories in 3 parts. Partly to make our stories as interesting as possible, and partly to try to 1-up each other with our summer adventures. (Somehow, I think I always finished in 2nd place lol).
Quite often, our stories needed no embellishing. Somehow, someway, something offbeat, something mysterious or something just wild & crazy always seemed to happen during the summer. It got so intriguing that my upstate NY friend came up with a Crazy Dream that we should keep our letters in a shoebox somewhere, meet up when we're 80 years old, and just read them when we get to be that age for old time laughs. Here's hoping that crazy dreams come true
.
So to spruce this puppy up a bit, I'm going back to school and writing my Youngstown review in creative fashion. It'll be titled in 3 parts. As you'll shortly discover if you read on, Youngstown was a wild & crazy ride!
Part I: Broken Wings (the pre-show)
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Leaving work mid-Wednesday afternoon for my 3-hour tour to Youngstown, mapquest told me I had two options. The direct route, Route 422, which would take me through small town (boondocks) Pennsylvania. Or the main highway route, looping around Pittsburgh. The direct route was about 20 miles shorter, but since you can drive faster on the main highway, the loop route was only supposed to take all of 1 minute longer than the direct route.
During the Youngstown concert, Carrie said, "I grew up in a very small town, went to a small school, went to a small college..."
Even before Carrie said that later that night, I was thinking how you always want to try the grass on the other side. Myself, I grew up in very big town, went to a big school, went to a very big college. So I'm always intrigued about what life is like on the small side.
Therefore, I decided to take a tour of the small side to Youngstown, taking my first trip ever on Route 422.
The view of small town life was pretty fun to see. You see very religious signs, lots of farms, huge outdoor yards -- some with front yard pools! Kids seemed to be having loads of fun. In the summer, nature is just breath taking with everything in full bloom and trees as thick and green as they can be. (I thought it might not be as fun in the middle of winter though lol).
Oh sure, there were downsides, like stretches where you could only go 35 MPH. And one mom & pop gas station even charged $4.28 a gallon for gas (quite a bit more than the "only" $3.99 rate we're paying here in the bigger city). But overall, I concluded all was good. Small town life seemed to have more positives than negatives.
Still, I concluded that small town life wouldn't be for me. It'd be fun to visit every once awhile, but I would always long for big town life. My theory is that's probably true for almost everyone, whichever side you grew up on. While the grass is always greener on the other side, I would guess that most people always long for the side they were born & raised on. You have to stick to the rivers & lakes that you're used to.
Never did that become more painfully obvious to me than 30 miles outside of Youngstown & 100 minutes before the concert was starting...when my car started to overheat & break down!
I got it about 10 more miles before I finally figured out what happened. Broken wings, my fan belt had snapped! So now I'm 20 miles outside the concert, a little over an hour 'til show time, with the ticket for my WV Crewmate (Perry/"teckie"/pfletch6/carrieluver) in my possession. Now what in the world do I do?
Fortunately, teckie has a GPS & came to the rescue! I found a Wal Mart parking lot, she found me, and we were off to the concert! Yeah, I was probably more steamed than my car was...but Renee ("The Captain"/carrie1fan) called in to calm us down and convinced us to enjoy the show. We have a great crew, all thanks to these forums, and we must obey Captain's orders...so enjoy the show we did!
Part 2: A Woot Woot! (the concert)
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Thanks to Teckie's rescue mission (which I will be forever grateful!), we got to the concert in plenty of time before Carrie's set. In fact, by the time we got to our seats, we still got treated to about 4 or 5 songs by Jason Michael Carroll.
Now I wasn't much of a fan of his before the show, and 4-5 songs isn't a lot to judge from, but he was better than I was expecting. I also found out this morning from a co-worker that today is Jason's 30th birthday...Woot Woot! Hope someone gave him birthday wishes at Reading last night...or belated wishes tomorrow!
During intermission, we caught up with Jeff....who had experienced the broke down car ordeal right before the show (with Perry as a passenger!) four months ago in Hershey. Don't make any more new friends with male Carrie fans, teckie! You might have to start your own repair shop
. Jeff & I entertained the notion of starting a new club for broken down cars on the way to concerts while wondering who's gonna join the club next (for all of you that have read this far, hopefully it's not you! If you stopped reading, maybe you will be cursed lol).
I also caught a glimpse of what Carrie signed for Ohio Heather during her meet & greet (nice!). And Amanda (carriefan20ca) wished me best of luck with the car (thanks!). Sorry we didn't get a chance to chat more (er, at all lol) but I am extremely shy (despite my ramblings on here). Still, it's always great to be able to meet someone new and put a face to the screen name! Hopefully we'll get to chat a bit at a show down the line (Cleveland?)
Moments after that, Carrie took the stage! In the minutes that followed, I was completely BLOWN AWAY by Carrie's stage presence! I had last been to a concert two months ago in State College, and even in just two short months, Carrie had already improved her stage presence by at least 10x - at least! -- just compared to the last show. I was just totally amazed! It never fails to amaze me just how fast of a learner she really is. She makes it look effortless!
We always knew Carrie is the best singer. There's no disputing that. As if any of us (or the non-believers) ever had any doubt, the Top Vocalist awards confirm it
. But I've always considered Keith Urban to be the best entertainer in the business. Hands down. He's not the best vocalist in the game, but he *is* the best entertainer.
We know Carrie learned a lot from touring with Keith, but to see her incorporate what she learned and make it her own....this quickly...Wow! I mean, just Wow! Her vocals were pure power, flawless & second to none, as always! But she was also extremely chatty and very entertaining -- giving the crowd their money's worth & more. When you have the best vocals AND you can entertain like that, can Entertainer Of The Year really be that far off down the line? I think not! Way to go, Carrie!!!
I had so many favorite moments, but here's a few that stood out:
During TMBIM when Carrie went searching for prince charmings on the catwalk, she got about about 10-15 rows down or so when there was a guy that had his maybe 5-year old daughter or so on his shoulders holding up a cowboy hat, hoping for an autograph. It was really sweet, and it touched Carrie instantly as she walked by stopped, and said:
"Awww, this is no fair! There's a cute little girl on your shoulders...gettin' me to sign something!" Of course, Carrie did indeed give her an autograph
.
(I just hope the little girl gets to keep the autograph and not the parent LOL).
Right before LN, Carrie said, "Thanks for making this #1!!!"
(Oh yeah!!! The crowd was extremely into that one! It's quickly becoming almost as popular as BHC...not quite there yet, but it's already clearly the 2nd biggest crowd reaction song of the concert).
Speaking of this crowd, it was very much into the show, one of the best I've seen yet! It's much more fun to be in a crowd like that than some I've been to (*cough* Lehigh *cough*).
I'm a big fan of the IKYW-thunderstorm performance, but Carrie's changed it up and now we're getting the IKYW-Opry performance...which is also quite good, too! Love how Carrie constantly refines & improves her performances. No matter how perfect they may seem, she always strives to make them better!
SS got an extremely strong crowd reaction, too. It's still about the saddest point of the concert (much like SH on the Some Hearts tour), only 'cause you know the show is soon to be over. But I still love how much power & conviction Carrie pours into that song. She does it with every song, of course, but especially that one! I think that's about the 7th time I've seen the performance of SS live in person dating back to last summer (I've lost count lol), but it still seems to get better & better each time.
But, the best moment of the night, personal wise, was during BHC! The night before, at Toledo, teckie got Carrie to say "Woot Woot!" at the end of the song! Woot Woot! Anybody who was at York on 9/8/07 (as Perry and I were) is an official member of the "Woot Woot" club. But to our knowledge, nobody has been able to get Carrie to say it again in concert -- until Perry got a Woot Woot a night earlier! Way to go Teckie!!!
Hoping for an encore of that on this night, Teckie was holding up a "Can I get a Woot Woot?" sign during the concert -- but Carrie seemed to keep missing it. We were surrounded by lots of tall people, and Perry just wasn't having any luck getting through.
A couple songs before the encore, Perry pulled out another copy of the sign & got the idea that I should hold one up, too, since I'm a little taller. Perhaps if we doubled the attempt, maybe Carrie would notice us. We tried before the encore, but still didn't seem to have much luck.
During Paradise City and at the beginning of BHC, we thought we might have finally gotten through, but we still weren't sure if Carrie caught a glimpse of the signs or not.
When Carrie finally came down the catwalk during BHC, she did finally notice our signs, leaving no doubt about it - as she cracked up laughing! That was great!!! Still didn't get a Woot Woot in that moment, but at the end of song when Carrie was saying her thank you's & goodbye to the crowd...she turned to us and said "Woot Woot!" Awesome!!!
See *that* right there is what being an Entertainer is all about! Instead of shying away from her 'Woot Woot' comment in York, Carrie is embracing it & entertaining the fans with what they want! You are awesome, Carrie! Thank you so much!
All praise goes to Perry for the successful return of the Woot Woots! Way to go, Perry!!! Let's see how long we can keep this going!
Ya just got to love her 
I love that you made her do it again!
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