Just punched out and its [sic] paycheck Friday

I’m not much of a concert-goer, but in just over the past year, I’d seen Kix Brooks, the Zac Brown Band, Foreigner, the Oak Ridge Boys and Dierks Bentley. I’ve paid a total of $10 for the whole kit and caboodle.

Now, I’ve added Toby Keith to that list. He closed out the country acts at the fair, and I finagled a free ticket.

Actually, I did come by it honestly. A donor gave us tickets to give the volunteers and I entered on that one. All the teams left on Friday afternoon, and my odds increased drastically because it was really only Luke and me.

He is the 20something (like maybe 20) guy from Kansas who lives in the RV next to me. Very nice guy; he’d volunteered here last year to work at the warehouse and came back this year. He has done two legs: working again at the warehouse and now supervising the volunteers on site. He goes back to school – he’ll be a junior – on August 10.

In fitting in with the whole ecumenical thing, he’s Mennonite. He’s also a farmer and is huge on country music, so Friday morning I caught him heading to breakfast and told him he that we were the two people interested in them and he’d “won” the drawing.

Honestly, even though I had pretty much given everyone related to Hope Village a couple of fair tickets, I felt weird keeping one for myself even though I was pretty much it.

Anyway, Luke and I went together and had fun. I wouldn’t say it was a blast or the best concert I’d ever been to, but it was definitely cool to go.

The seats were SRO, though, and we got a spot in the back of the throng (just in front of the risers with seats) and in the middle. Which seemed like a good idea until all these 6-foot-4 people in cowboy hats started standing in front of us.

Oh well, that’s going to happen. Luckily Luke was the one who got the weirdos stopping to talk to him. He later said he must have had some sign hanging around his neck because several totally drunk off their butts people came and said really bizarre things to him.

It was fun people-watching. I can’t imagine bringing a 4-year-old to a concert starting at 8 p.m., but those weren’t even the youngest.

I tell you, God has a sense of humor. There are some funny-looking people in the world.

Anyway, the concert was pretty good. Not excellent by any stretch. I did enjoy it, but it didn't blow me away. Had I paid more than, maybe $30, for it, I would have been disappointed. It was pretty much a 2-hour Ford commercial with a soundtrack. He also looked extremely tired, and when I mentioned that to Luke later, he said he’d thought the same thing.

Other than the Ford commercials -- I am not kidding about those; so blatant even if you did discount the stupid 3-minute video intro and the “Ford”-emblazoned guitar he used for the first set of songs -- it was cool. He did most of the favorites and two common ones that weren't released but are still popular. (One was “Weed with Willie,” and I was hoping he'd have Scotty Emerick on the video screen for the duet like he did with Willie Nelson on “Beer for My Horses,” but no such luck.)

I kind of knew this, but I like the stuff he's written with Emerick more than the other stuff. I also like the ones he's done with Chuck Cannon, but the newer stuff just isn't the same. I really don't like the new single at all.

But probably a third to a half of it was Emerick's stuff, including “Weed” and “Beer.” I wished he'd have done more of the older, older unreleased stuff, but he only did “I Should've Been a Cowboy.” I guess he's been recording for 15+ years so there's no way to encompass everything in two hours, but I would have liked to have heard stuff
like “Jackie Don Tucker.”

The video screen was fun, although I’d be more inclined to shell out money for a more intimate/acoustic show. As it is, they pretty much have to put those up so people can see anything at all, but it was entertaining. The guys operating the camera were pretty phenomenal; there were so many quick cuts from musician to musician I wondered if it was a pre-recorded video, but I don’t guess it was.

Some of the videos, I think, were the regular videos that are aired on whatever networks air country music videos. But some were clearly cut just for the live shows, and those were cool. The “Beer” one had kind of a comic book theme going on interspersed with the shots of Willie Nelson singing his part. The “Weed” one was pretty psychedelic and the “How Do You Like Me Now?!” had what appeared to be shots of a young Keith, or possibly family members, then it would cut into a live shot.

The “Weed” one would have been better with it as a duet with Emerick (I am partial here, I know.) Before the song, Keith made some banter about how the song hadn’t been released and theorized on why everyone knew it, from Minot to Baghdad. It’s like, well, I can’t speak for the others, but know it because I have a huge crush on the co-writer.

Lots of drinking songs. Guess I never noticed that before. The same guy who had a hit with “Whiskey Girl” slummed last year with “I Like Girls That Drink Beer,” and the whole freaking “Red Solo Cup” phenomenon.

A brief story he told was that right before “How Do You Like Me Now?!” was released (not sure if he meant single or album), the Nashville people called him and said it was going out, get them art now.

And that was when he was in Minot at the fair, whatever 14-15 years ago. So the art on that – something about a RR trestle – is in Minot. That was pretty amusing. I don’t have my CD with me, so I can’t find it to look.

One thing I didn't think could ever be said about a country concert was that one of the absolute highlights was the trombone solo. Yes, you read that right. He had guys playing trumpet, sax and trombone and at two points they moved to the front and incorporated solos. I loved it. The guitarist was also pretty amazing. I don't think the keyboard player had a solo, though.

I tried to get pictures and it didn't work, but that’s OK because the shirt he was wearing was so horrible I never want to see it again.

And, to irritate the editor in me, there were two points during the sing-a-long when the lyrics were on the screen that they had grammatical errors.

Not kidding. I am so tempted to write his publicist. One was supposed to be "c'mon" and it was spelled "common." Really. The other was my pet peeve: "just punched out and its paycheck Friday."

IT IS. *How* hard is that? The word is a contraction.

I grit my teeth on the whole “Girls That Drink Beer,” but I can forgive that more than “it’s/its.” That is worse than fingernails on chalkboard to me.