The name Brisblondie may be familiar…she was part of the Dallas live blog twitter stream! Read her recap of the Dallas TX Idol show below
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I had purchased $10 tickets on one of the huge sales they were having for this season’s tours, but ended up winning some better seats from a radio station that was doing a giveaway at the ATT store near my house. They ended up emailing me the next day saying they had also given me Meet&Greet passes too since they knew I wanted them, and had found some extras!! All that for hearing them broadcasting right as I was driving by the store! Kimberly Caldwell (Season 2 finalist, TV Guide host, and David Cook’s former girlfriend) was also at the store signing autographs, so I got to meet her too. I had seen her before, as she was sitting in the front row of the Tulsa concert, a few rows in front of us, the year that David Cook won the show.
I met my friend Christi down at the American Airlines Center at Noon in hopes that the Idol singers would come out before doing press and soundcheck to sign autographs and take pictures with fans like they usually do. That turned out to be way more effort than the payoff was worth this year, but we still had fun in the burning hot furnace that was the “barricades”.
After several hours of chit chatting with other fans and sweating through our clothes, Aaron Kelly and Big Mike Lynch did come out and we met them and got pictures with them. Both are very very sweet. Aaron especially. I asked him if I could give him a little hug and he asked if he could give me a big one. Haha. J He said he was moving to Nashville and I told him I had heard he was one of the standouts of the show. He called me “ma’am” 3 times. Haha! Mike is truly a huge man, by the way. That nickname is no accident.
So then, time continued to pass with no more Idols coming out to meet the fans, so it was time for me to clean up/change clothe and meet my friend LeAnn for the Meet&Greet and for Christi to go home to shower and get her tix for the show. So we parted ways and I went to clean up, but while I was ordering a cold drink across the street I could see 5 more of the Idols had just come out to sign!
It was mayhem…Casey, Lee, Andrew, Katie, and Tim had all come out at once, right when I needed to go get in line to meet them inside! I knew I was missing out, since the M&G would only be a “walk and talk” past the table they are sitting behind while they “sign and slide”. I did see Casey, Lee, Tim, and Andrew up close and talked to Lee and Andrew briefly before I left to go the M&G. I even got a picture of Andrew with my friend LeAnn that had just shown up.
So, the M&G was fun but quick and I did get a chance to speak briefly to Siobhan, Crystal, Tim, and Katie, and then Casey and Lee again. They are all VERY good looking up close. Especially Casey and Tim!! Casey and Lee kept promising they were coming back out to the barricades to sign/take pictures…so that just prompted me to never actually get cleaned up and head back out to try to get a picture with him/them. My Mom loves Casey, so it was all for her. (well…and for me. Hehe)
So, I went back out there with LeAnn and by then Christi was back too. We waited and waited, but the venue wasn’t open yet, and my husband was still stuck at work, so there was nothing else to do but sit inside comfortably somewhere enjoying a cold drink or a meal, but what fun would that be? So we waited in the heat another hour and finally decided they weren’t coming out and I no longer cared because I was realizing I had been standing up in the heat for 7 hours and needed to get my tickets at Will Call, meet hubby, and sit down. So off I went to do that.
While I was wandering around in the heat on the other side of the building waiting for hubby’s train to arrive, I got a text from Christi saying Casey had just come out at 7:00 (!) and she got a picture with him! She didn’t get to go to the M&G and was only there to meet Casey, so I was happy for her. J All three of us had taken the day off work for this, so it was fun to finally meet them, etc.
So, finally the actual show was starting and I was already exhausted. We had pretty decent seats, which was great after the 10 story high rafter seats we had last year. Hubby and I both really enjoyed the show. We were surprised as this wasn’t a very popular season of American Idol and they’ve had to cancel several shows. Every single one of them sounded better than they did on the show, and had much better stage presence. They’ve all grown a lot.
Didi was pretty good, Andrew was pretty good, Katie’s voice was HUGE and she was quite impressive, Tim sounded FANTASTIC, Siobhan hit one of the longest notes I’ve ever heard in my life and looked great in her weird tutu and face sparkles, Aaron sounded like a country superstar – he was INCREDIBLE!!!!!, Big Mike sounded amazing as always but sort of bored us with his slow brand of R&B, the hometown crowd went CRAZY for Casey and he proceeded to blow the roof off the place with his blazing guitar riffs and bluesy soul, Crystal’s set was really good vocally and much more upbeat and energetic than I expected and I really enjoyed her, and Lee was better than on the show, and showed more charisma and stage presence by moving around than he usually does.
The standouts BY FAR were Aaron and Casey. They both outdid anything they ever did on the show, Casey especially let loose like I hoped he would. I will definitely be checking out any upcoming music those two might put out. Katie also showed that she could be a viable pop star.
And that was my American Idol Season 9 Tour experience!
