I went to a country concert....

and a rock concert broke out (or I should say, "tried" to break out).

Sara, Kristen and I went to the new arena on UVA's campus to see Kenny Chesney. It was a very entertaining show, as I expected. I'm not really a country fan. I don't go out of my way to listen to it, but if I happen to come across a station on the radio, I won't immediately turn the channel. I've only been to 3 country concerts, and have never paid more than $10 to go to any of them. Everytime I've gone to one though, the thing that sticks out to me is the number of rock songs that were either teased, or outright covered.

One of the opening acts was a guy named Phil Vassar, who apparently is from nearby Lynchburg (about an hour south of C'ville). He only mentioned about 5 times each song, how happy he was to be "home". When he initally took the stage, he and his band started the show by playing "Baba O'Riley" by The Who (also the theme song to one of the CSI shows on TV). He then segwayed that into one of his normal songs. After the first song, he and his band broke out into "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5, which was then segwayed into another one of his songs. I thought I was sensing a theme here. For most of the rest of his set, he just played his stuff, until at the end when he and his band broke out into "Kasmir" by Led Zeppelin, and also a little "Day Tripper" by the Beatles. So we have The Who, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles all covered in one set. Two of my all time top 5 favorite bands.

Next up was Kenny, who took to the stage with a little "Streets Have No Name" by U2. Most of his set was cover free until 3/4 of the way through when Uncle Kracker (Detroit represent!!) showed up on stage. Uncle Kracker and Kenny sang Uncle Kracker's hit "Follow Me" along with Kid Rock's "Cowboy" and followed up with Uncle Kracker's cover of "Drift Away".

My question, is 1.) Why do country musicians cover so much stuff in concert, and 2.)Why do they cover rock songs? The only other country artist I've seen was some dude named Clay Walker. When I saw him (Dock got us free tickets, and my roommate Polio and I thought it would be good to go for a laugh) he sang a 45 minute set (no joke), went off stage, then for an encore came out and played another 45 minutes playing nothing but Elvis, Creedence, Van Morrison, and The Eagles (to name a few of the classic rockers that he covered). If I was a hard-core country fan who paid money to see this stuff, I would have been mad. It would be like me going to a rock show, only to have half the show consisting of country or something. I don't mind going to a concert and hearing a cover song or two, I mean I've been to a ton of DMB shows where Watchtower was played, but why do they do so many, and why don't they cover country artists? Its not like there aren't any good country artist to cover (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Sr., etc..)

Maybe they've always just had dreams of being rockstars, couldn't make it and so they had to settle on country music, so this is how they live out the fantasy.

Today is my Friday, which means a nice 4-day weekend for me. Have a good Labor Day weekend!

Last 5 songs I've listened to:
None - I've been listening to the Tigers-Yankees game.