Great show. We had good seats, in row U on the right-hand section, no more than 100′ from the stage. The lawn section was packed; given the amount of beer, the number of teenage couples, and the presence of country music, I suspect a mini-baby boom in 9 months.
Rachel Proctor opened; I’m normally willing to skip opening bands that I’ve never heard of, but she put on an enjoyable show, playing most of the songs off her only album. Her set was pretty quick– call it maybe 35 minutes. After that, we got an extended Merle Haggard set (with “From Graceland to the Promised Land” repeated probably 15 times, thanks to an inattentive sound guy) before Randy came on stage. He brought his whole band– all 8 of them– and they put on a terrific show. I didn’t keep a detailed set list, but he played most of his #1 hits (including “Three Wooden Crosses”, “Digging Up Bones”, “I’m Gonna Love You Forever”, “I Told You So”, and “Deeper than the Holler”.) I don’t remember the first encore; the second was “America Will Always Stand“, which I hadn’t heard before (see, I told you I don’t listen to country music much).
Between songs, he was relaxed and talkative, and he seemed genuinely surprised at the volume and level of crowd reaction. He spent a good ten minutes accepting roses (mostly from women of a certain age) and signing autographs during the two encores, which I thought was a classy touch. (personal to Betty: he’s going to be in Gulfport at the casino on 10/24– you should go!)
This was a country concert; according to the master tour dates list, he also playes “inspirational concerts”, mostly at Baptist megachurches. I might have to dust off my missionary nametag and go to one of ’em.
Getting to and from the venue was a hassle, thanks to construction on I-75 in both directions and a complete lack of parking control at the amphitheater– once the show was over, the parking lot became a huge free-for-all. There were staff on hand to direct traffic, but none of them did. It took us about 2 hrs up and almost 3 coming back, all for a distance of about 100mi each way. Overall, it was quite an enjoyable experience, and well worth even Ticketmaster’s bloated prices ($31 for the ticket, plus another $9/ticket of fees).
Julie wanted to know which Muppet most closely resembles Randy. Judge for yourself…
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| Dr Teeth, lead of the Electric Mayhem | Randy Travis, leader of the whitest 9 men since the 1950 Supreme Court |
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