American Idol Concert

Well, Patrick and Monique sure know how to end their visit with a flourish. We all went to the American Idol concert last night, including Shannon and Kenya. It’s actually the first time I have been to a concert. (My second will be later this summer to see Jack Johnson! Yay!) We had a great babysitter for Noah and Braxton, so we got to enjoy the concert without worrying about the little guys. Our plan was to go out to dinner first, but the traffic was so heavy we barely had time to get to the stadium in time for the concert to start. It’s a good thing we left as early as we did! Here are a few pictures of us heading in to the stadium. Shortly after that my batteries died, so the rest of the pictures come from Pat and Monique’s cameras. Thank goodness for them being prepared!

We got some food in the stadium and found our seats. They were really great seats. We were off to the side and really close to the stage, so we had a great view of the singers. In fact, one part of the stage where the singers would walk during their songs and touch the hands of audience members was close enough that Sammy and Ember were able to go over there. Ember got to give five to Kristy Lee Cook and Sammy says his hand barely touched David Cook’s hand. They were pretty excited.

The concert was good. All the singers did a good job I thought. The crowd, at least where I was sitting, didn’t get up and dance much or get all that excited. Our kids, although they all said they liked it, certainly looked bored, but I think they were just tired from our busy week. I will say that I really noticed more in concert than watching on TV what the judges mean when they talk about “connecting with the audience.” There were definitely standouts as far as performance and personality and just having that connection. Like I said, they all sounded good. I liked the songs and their voices. To me the real standouts were of course my favorite, Michael Johns, and also the winner of American Idol, David Cook. They really had presence and star quality. David Cook especially interacted more with the audience than anyone else and really built up the excitement. The one that surprised me the most was Kristy Lee Cook. I never gave her much thought to her on the show (other being mad that she lasted longer than Michael Johns), but she really had star quality too. She looked gorgeous and was probably the best there as far as the way she walked and moved. She just seemed like she owned the stage and was so confident. As far as David Archuleta, the favorite of my nieces, he does have an amazing voice and sounded awesome. He is lacking the confidence some of the others have but he is sweet and endearing, and of course he’s young so he’ll get that in time more probably. Monique took lots of pictures and got some really great shots. Here are my favorite shots of each.

The part that really got the kids to show some excitement, though, was after the concert. All the kids got concert t-shirts and then Pat found out where we needed to go to see the singers leaving for their tour bus. We waited for a little while, it actually didn’t take too long, and then they started coming out to sign autographs and most of them were willing to take pictures too. The kids had a blast, and it was really fun to see them all and hear some of the comments with the fans as they went through the line. Here are some of the pictures that Pat got.

We got home late and found that Braxton and Noah had done well and were both sleeping soundly. Now Pat’s family is all gone and we miss them! It was so great having them all here. We had lots of great adventures and most of all just enjoyed being with them. We love having visitors and we look forward to many more fun family or friend visits from whoever is willing to come!

~ by Kathy on July 12, 2008.