My mom’s boyfriend Paul turned 55 on Sunday. My mom and I needed to find something fun for the three of us to do that wouldn’t cost us too much money. He’s a BIG music buff so my mom and I bought tickets to see Carrie Underwood in Hamilton. I LOVE Carrie Underwood (I know some of you might not ), so naturally I was extremely excited for the concert on Saturday night! The tickets were actually relatively cheap, I think only about $45.00 per person.

Now… to the concert itself!
Country artist Josh Turner opened up for Carrie, and he was fantastic! I have never heard him before, and if you don’t like country music you definitely wont like him, but he has a fantastic voice. His voice is very VERY deep and soulful. He is a wonderful performer. For those interested, he did some amazing covers of ‘Long Black Train’ and ‘One Woman Man’, and sang some of his original songs including ‘The Difference Between a Woman and a Man’, and ‘Good Woman Bad’. If you like country music and deep soulful voices, you will definitely like him!

Carrie Underwood came out with her fast paced song ‘Flat on the Floor’ from her new CD Carnival Ride. She has an absolutely AMAZING set of pipes. You know when you hear an artist on their CD, and they sound awesome, and you HIGHLY DOUBT they will be that good live? Well she was. 
She sang songs from her first album ‘Some Hearts’, and included a medley of four songs from this album. Her memorable performances from this particular album include ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’, where she had the audience sing two choruses and did a beautiful a capella (without instruments) chorus and she actually cried. Well, a little. She teared. . Her other memorable performance from this album was ‘I Ain’t in Checotah Anymore’. On the screen behind her she had a video playing of her hometown, Checotah. She had photos of the school, the corner store, her house, etc. It was really moving to see where she had come from and she had pictures of her family and her dog too. It personalized her and I loved it!
From her new album, she performed many songs such as ‘All-American Girl’ (changed to All-Canadian Girl!), ‘The More Boys I Meet’, ‘Crazy Dreams’, and ’Last Name’. All were performed to perfection and sung absolutely beautifully.  She made changes to every song to keep the audience interested. She moved all over the stage and managed to keep the audience interested during her ‘costume’ changes. There was a neat light show while she changed . Her outfits were awesome, the band was amazing, the props (such as lighting and videos in the background) all worked together so wonderfully. She has really grown as an artist and put on an amazing show.

To wrap it up she came back for an encore of – get this – November Rain, Paradise City, and Before he Cheats. When she began November Rain I was a little worried about how the entire encore would play out… but it was actually really, really good. She performed this song acoustically (while wearing a Hamilton Bulldogs jersey, which made the crowd pretty excited…), and then moved to Paradise City and did a pretty good job with it. I mean, she’s no Guns ‘N’ Roses, but she did a good job with a tough song. It’s easy to sound very cheesy and amateur when singing that song, but she made it her own and did well. And of course, she finished with Before He Cheats, probably one of her most famous songs, and it was awesome.

All in all it was a fantastic concert. I would recommend buying Carrie’s new CD and checking out Josh Turner if you havn’t heard of him. Carrie’s new CD Carnival Ride isn’t as ‘country’ as you might think, so I’d check it out even if you’re not into country!!