2012 Recap: 10 concerts this year! (pt 2)

Where I left off at the end of the last blog was at the end of April. Fast forward to the beginning of June, Sugarland, Lauren Alaina and Canaan Smith at Shoreline!! I joined the Sugarland fan club prior to the show to get presale tickets. I also put in for a meet and greet with them just to see what happened and to my surprise we got one!! I've been wanting to meet them for a long time too! Our seats we got through their presale were pretty good too :) Dave and I both got to go back and meet them because they give out guest passes to their fans which is pretty cool. The only other fan club I know that does that is Jake Owen's! It was so surreal meeting them, I tried to take it in but of course it went by too fast. They were both so sweet and down to earth! Dave and I got our picture taken together with them and that was it!

We went back to our seats and it was time for Lauren Alaina! She has so much spunk and she reminds me of Kellie Pickler a little. That girl can sing!

I was very excited to see Sugarland because this was my first time seeing them headline. I saw them back when they were opening for Kenny Chesney at Soldier Field a few years ago and could barely see. This tour they were doing was really awesome too because you could basically request songs and they would play them. A lot of people had signs with requests on them and Jennifer asked everyone to hold up their signs in the middle of the show. She brought a guy that just graduated from college and sang Tennessee for him. There was also a girl that was selected to sing with Sugarland from the radio winners. I entered that contest but didn't win, bummer :(

The sign says, "We're zookeepers, Sh..it Happens" I thought it was hysterical! 

This was a pretty neat sign! 

The guy they sang Tennessee for

The girl singing with Sugarland, I think her name was Lindsay. 

The next show we went to was a little different. It was part of a songwriters series at the Jason Stephens Winery in Morgan Hill, CA. I really love seeing these kind of shows because they are so intimate and you hear stories about the songs. We mainly went to see our girl Mallary Hope! If you haven't heard of her you need to look her up and listen, she's got a dynamite voice and amazing songs! Joining her was a songwriter named Jon Stone and Kelleigh Bannen. I had one of those "omg they wrote that" moments right when Jon started singing. He's written songs for Lee Brice, "Love Like Crazy", songs for Jerrod Neimann and Rascal Flatts "Me and My Gang"! Kelliegh Bannen was a really new artist that I've never even heard of but left the show wanting to download her songs! Amazing talent! Mallary sang a couple new songs as well that she had just written like the week before. One called, "I'm Alive" and one called "Girl Like Me". Both written probably while sitting on the bathroom floor :) Her birthday was the day or two before so we sang happy birthday to her too! We stuck around after the show to saw hi and I was wearing the shirt my mom got for me while seeing Mallary in Nashville. I didn't get many pics from this show because my camera died and my phone was almost dead :( Here are the few I got to take......

Me and Mallary! 

The next concert we had tickets for was The Brothers Of Sun tour in Oakland at the Arena. We went to this show mainly so we could see Jake Owen! Dave and I both got meet and greets with Jake and he remembered us from the boat in Nashville! It was good to see him! 

Dave and Jake

Jake and I- (why aren't you looking at the camera!! second time this has happened but oh well lol, next time I want a funny picture!)

It was nice seeing Jake playing for so many people but the venue and the setup of the show wasn't the greatest. When I bought our tickets I got us pretty good seats, or so I thought. The chairs were so close together on the ground level that I felt squished in like a sardine. After Jake, Dave and I went to walk around. We were told to go back to our seats by security because we were "blocking a path by standing there". We were standing right behind the pitchers mound and nobody was around. Ok, so we get back to our seats and people were sitting in them!!! We asked them to move because they were in our seats and the girls moved down one seat. We talked to the security and they did nothing......Dave and I at this point were really pissed so we left the show. I'm glad we got to see Jake but this arena needs to get their crap together when it comes to live shows. I know there has to be something I left out but I try not to remember this show because it was one of the worst experiences I had at an arena show.......never again! 

Sooooo onto a more positive show, Rascal Flatts, Little Big Town, Eli Young Band, and Edens Edge at Shoreline!! I got some really good seats through Rascal Flatts fan club, 5th row!! I applied for a meet and greet with them and joined Little Big Town's fan club for a chance to meet them too. I somehow won both!! Super awesome!! Little Big Town is another group I've been wanting to meet that I can cross off my list along with Sugarland! They were so sweet and down to earth as well. I told the girls how much I loved their clothes and that every time I see them they are always dressed so nice. I wore an older Little Big Town shirt to the show and they told me how much they loved my "Vintage" shirt! 

I went back to our seats for a little bit to watch the end of Eden's edge before heading off to the Rascal Flatts meet and greet.

I missed the Eli Young Band because the line was so long for the meet and greet and because I was at the back of the line! Dave got a few pictures and videos for me of them but it still sucks that I missed them!
I could hear them backstage but could not see!

When it was my turn to meet the guys, I got a big hug from Gary and I tried to tell Joe Don happy birthday but him and Jay were in the middle of talking.....I thought that was kind of rude that they ignored me but whatever....they were having an off day or something? Who knows!

Little Big Town hit the stage right after I got back and they were awesome!! They played a lot of new music off their new album Tornado because it was release week. They sang a bluegrass version of Lady Gaga's, born this way too that was sooooo cool!! I can't get over how great they are and I'm so happy they are finally getting the recognition they deserve!

Rascal Flatts up next! They played a lot of their hits and even took requests during the middle of the set! We left a little over halfway through because Dave had to work in the morning but overall great show!! One of my favorites of the year!

The last show I'm doing in this blog is the JT Hodges/ Casey James show we saw at the rodeo club a few weeks after we saw Rascal Flatts. I kind of already reviewed the Train concert we went to in our cruise blog right before this so if you want to read that blog for that review, it's there! The show at the rodeo club was acoustic and was pretty awesome! It was good to see JT again and seeing Casey James was kind of different but he grew on me and I like him now!

Casey James and JT Hodges singing together :) 

This year was a good year for concerts but there were certain people that I missed seeing. Hopefully Dierks Bentley comes back around here in 2013! We missed Jason and Luke because of the cruise and would like to see them again! Totally excited to see Keith Urban next year at Shoreline with Little Big Town. So far that's the only show I know of at Shoreline. There are a few others that are going to be at the rodeo club in April that I don't want to miss! Certain people that sing Cruise and Angel Eyes......:) Can't wait for 2013!