Life Is Good Today!
The Summer Concert Kick-Off with The Zac Brown Band
The Venue
An exciting day, indeed: the 2015 summer kick-off concert at one of my favorite venues, Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. “Blossom,” as we local natives call it, offers acres of land, a huge general admission outdoor lawn area, and a covered pavilion near the stage, making the total capacity about 22,000 people. Rock or classical, in rain or shine, I’ve seen and been part of it all, including torrential rain pours with mud slides, back in the Lollapalooza days.
- Blossom Music Center
The Adventure
Life was definitely good that day (as every day should be). We had perfectly gorgeous, sunny weather; it was a Saturday, my favorite day of the week; and my friends and I had stumbled upon VIP tickets. We arrived early to participate in an incredibly important part of the Blossom culture: tailgating. Sandwiches, chips, beer with the ever-important koozie, making friends with the group that had Fireball (available in tiny, red solo-cup-like shot glasses) … you get the picture.
- Left: Nici, Gretchen, and Kyle, Tailgating • Right: VIP Lounge at Blossom Music Center
The Band
As I’ve mentioned on my Music page, by being open-minded to new music, you never know what you mind find, discover, or grow to love. In this case, I’m not really a country music fan, but I had heard nothing but good comments about the Zac Brown Band, and I wanted to experience the music for myself. I found that, although the music is essentially country, many rock elements were involved, especially when the band performed several cover songs, such as Kashmir by Led Zeppelin and Times Like These by the Foo Fighters.
The Concert
Via the VIP tickets, we were lucky enough to have pre-concert access to an outdoor lounge near the pavilion, and then were seated very close to the stage. To say that the show was exciting is an understatement. The venue was packed with adoring fans, the two-storied stage housed eight very talented band members, and the back wall lit up with a variety of different colors and scenes throughout the show, including close-ups of the band. (It was then that I realized Zac Brown is a true, freaking hottie, and I started dreaming that I could hang with him and our toes in the sand. But that’s a story for another day.) Even though I didn’t know most of the songs and couldn’t sing along, I could dance and enjoy every moment of that experience.
- Nici and Gretchen at the Zac Brown Band Concert
Something Different
One, interesting twist was that the band took an intermission versus performing an encore. Cool concept! Not to everyone, though. I read online that someone who had attended the concert felt disappointed because the band did not perform an encore and that this “soured” his experience. Really? I thought it was great. Two reasons:
1) The Zac Brown Band didn’t follow a formula. Hooray! If every artist followed a formula, we’d still be stuck with the old ’80s rock formula: beginning, music, chorus, music, chorus, wild guitar solo, chorus, fade. It’s OK to break out of the mold. Evolution is a good thing.
2) Don’t we all feel a little silly sometimes when the band leaves the stage before an encore? Think about it. The band pretends to finish their seemingly last song, the roadies pretend to put away the equipment, all while we common folk (aka non-rock stars) scream and clap and scream for the artist(s) to come back out and play for more. Why are we doing this? I’m not complaining, because I partake in this activity at every single concert I attend, but I’m analyzing it here and now. Zac might have actually allowed us to keep our dignity a little bit, and (cowboy) hats off to that. 🙂
Misadventure?
I tell myself that misadventure oftentimes leads to discovery. While at the show, and dutifully recording the songs to document in the set list section, I ended up losing my notebook full of notes. In my worry about how I would capture the songs, I did some searching, and found a new website that allows users to keep track of concert set lists. Amazing discovery!! Thankfully, due to setlist.fm, I am able to provide the set list below.
The Set List!
Courtesy of setlist.fm
1. Homegrown
2. Knee Deep
3. One Day
4. Uncaged
5. Kashmir (Led Zeppelin cover; link is to the original version)
6. The Devil Went Down to Georgia (The Charlie Daniels Band cover; original version here)
7. Jolene (Ray LaMontagne cover; original version here)
8. Keep Me in Mind
9. Can’t You See [Clay Cook on lead vocals] (The Marshall Tucker Band cover; original version here)
10. Castaway
Intermission
11. Loving You Easy
12. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen cover; link is to the original version)
13. Toes (“Life is good today!”)
14. Day for the Dead
15. Times Like These [Clay Cook on lead vocals] (Foo Fighters cover; link is to the original version)
16. Remedy
17. Beautiful Drug
18. Free / Into the Mystic
19. Enter Sandman [John Driskell Hopkins on lead vocals] (Metallica cover; link is to the original version)
20. Chicken Fried
21. Tomorrow Never Comes
