Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts

Charlene and I went to the concert at Rexall Tuesday night and it was a good one. I was excited because not only do I get to see Rascal Flatts but Taylor Swift is opening for them and has a platnium album with about 3 songs that play onthe radio that I really like.

But I realized while watching her perform, that this is her debut album and she doesn’t have a great stage presence. At least not where I was sitting, in the 200s in the corner. She didn’t seem to connect with the audience and said of lot basic lines that anyone would say on stage. “How’s everyone feeling tonight?”; “Everyone excited to see Rascal Flatts?” etc. She also plugged for herself and RF, voting for them to win some CMT awards, which are fan based awards.

She had on a really shiny, sparkly striped silver/white sequined minidress that seemed to me very blinding because the spotlights would reflect off her chest like a care bear stare. She had a drum battle on stage with a bandmate which didn’t impress either Charlene or myself because they just took turns banging once on the drum… a little too long and not entertaining. I don’t own her album so I only knew the ones from the radio but she performed those ones really well. At least you could tell she tried hard to make herself at home on the stage and to make it like she was the main act instead of opening for someone else.

 Rascal Flatts had two stages set up; the main stage had 2 storeys of video wall and the small round stage for an intimate feeling was set up near the rear of the floor. The small stage connected to the main by a retractable bridge. They came out strong by banging off the first 3 of their set right after one another. During the little breather, the lead singer,Gary said “The sign of a good man is when he admits an honest mistake”. He mistakenly called us Calgary during the introduction.

The songs were more familiar because they were from their more recent albums, just a couple I didn’t recognize that Charlene knew. They had a small little intimate party at the circular stage without Gary, where Joe did a lot of singing pared down, kinda unplugged like. It was a little segment where they sang a selection of songs the band liked. Joe was very charismatic and witty. Had a great repore with the audience and really seemed to enjoy performing and taking a leading role during this time. (Also, the drummer got to sing a little too. He’s Edmontonian so he got a little special mention and a small solo.) Gary came out at the end and joined in on the little stage for a  song or 2 before everyone headed back to the main stage and they finished up the last of their set.

 I found out a couple days later that Saskatoon was cancelled because of laryngitis so I figure the couple of breaks Gary took during the concert was to try and slow the progress or something. Lucky we got to see the show!

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