Last post! I enjoyed the ACMs this year, but to be totally honest, I'm going to be happy to be done with them. I said I was going to write about every performance and that I have - took a little longer than I wanted it to, but that's all right. I'm going to get to the remaining five performances shortly, but just a heads up for what's coming. In two words: album reviews.
I have a bunch in my list to do and am hoping to get at least four done this week, if not more. I'll be starting off with Craig Morgan's This Ole Boy, Amy Dalley's Coming Out of the Pain, Casey James by Casey James and Chase Rice's Dirt Road Communion. That's more than likely going to be the order I do them in. Also on the lineup: Changed by Rascal Flatts, Hard 2 Love by Lee Brice, Up All Night by Kip Moore and Josh Abbott Band's Small Town Family Dreams. I might do one where I review a handful of EP's since there's been some new ones put out lately as well. All of that and Carrie Underwood's new one comes out tomorrow (May 1st) as I'm writing this. Goodness. I have a lot of listening to do. I'll mix in some non-album reviews in there. But yeah, the goal is to do those first four done by the end of this week.
But not before I do some more watching. Turning my focus back to the 2012 ACMs for the last time.
Starting off with the performance by the lone female artist left, Miranda Lambert who performed "Over You". First off, I loved the set up for this with the images of windows behind her and her band with images of a winter-y woods behind her. Nice nod to the video there. Really liked the snow falling down as well. It was kind of like a Broadway set in a way and as a person who loves musicals, I liked that. The band sounded good here, though the mix felt slightly off and I can't explain what sounds off about it. Maybe it's me. I just feel like something isn't as loud as it should be there. Not a big deal, obviously, since I can't identify it. Great delivery by Miranda here I felt and probably one of the most emotional performances of the night. I was expecting it to get a bigger response than it got. She got a good response, but I thought they'd do a standing ovation. A group of people did stand, but not everyone. But still, a good performance.
I picked out these remaining performances pretty deliberately as they were among my favorite performances of the night. There's a couple that were in other parts, but these were all up there for me. I began with Miranda and am going to shift gears to another blond artist, Mr. Dierks Bentley with his performance of "Home". There were a lot of great songs released last year and this is among the best in my opinion. It's maybe not my ultimate favorite of the year, but it's up there for me. Beautifully written song here. I loved the look of this performance, the way it started off with just Dierks and his guitar and the rest of the stage blacked out. And then the rest of the lights and the band kicking in at the same time. Perhaps my favorite visual moment from the show. Complete with the images on the video screen which really showcased what the song is about. I thought that Dierks and his band sounded great; his band is among my favorite backing bands.
Speaking of favorite backing bands, this next performance features another of my favorites. I'm talking about Jason Aldean and his performance of another wonderfully written song "Fly Over States". Now if I'm being objective, which I'm trying to be, I gotta point out that Jason had a couple of rough spots in there. If he happens to see this, he might argue with my need to point that out, but that's besides the point. It wasn't anything too bad, just a couple of spots near the beginning. It got better as it went along which makes me wonder if he was having some issues hearing himself early on, issues that maybe resolved themselves as he went on. Still a very solid vocal and the band was spot on. My favorite thing about this performance is actually not the song, but the set up. Did anyone notice anything special about it? Yes?
No? Well, if not, that's what I'm here for, so never fear. They recreated the video. And as a big fan of the music video, I loved that! I saw the video earlier today and they all appear to be dressed similarly even, if not the same in some cases. I could be wrong about, but seeing the video again and now watching the performance again it seems that way. It all looked so cool. They even had the walkway part as a runway of sorts.
From Aldean to Church. Eric Church, that is. Good ole Eric; the guy's been all over the country blogs and twitter today in what just may be the most blown out of proportion story there's been in a while. I'm not really going to get too into that now except to say that the events of today have inspired an upcoming blog. I've seen one that was kind of against him and I'll be coming at it more from his side since that's the side I've been on since the story broke. But that's a post for another time, now to focus on his performance of "Springsteen".
First off, if you read my review, you know I love this song. It's gotten a lot of praise and rightfully so, seems it even went gold recently. Congratulations to Eric on that; it really is a great song. And meanwhile, Eric Church plays the piano. Color me surprised. I liked the opening with just him and the piano, it added something different to the song, which is one of the cool things that can happen during an awards show. I'd like to see more artists tweak their songs on these kinds of shows. Doesn't have to be anything extreme, just mix it up a bit. I keep mentioning my favorite backing bands and you know what other band is among them? This one. These guys are a lot like the band members for the last two artists I talked about here in that they are perfectly suited for their lead singers. I'd say that the guys in all three of these bands; Eric's, Jason's and Dierks's; are among the most consistent. I thought Eric sounded good and liked how it looked visually. Great performance.
Well. After all of this time there is just one performance left, provided I didn't forget someone which I'm pretty positive I didn't. Again, if you read everything and think of someone, please let me know. Before I get to this last performance, which was actually the second of the night, I'd like to thank you for reading! And remind you that comments are more than welcome.
This last performances is by one of my favorite country artists; I just love this guy. This guy being Chris Yong and his crazy energetic performance of "Save Water, Drink Beer". This is going to be an odd thing to bring up at this moment, but I love watching Golden Girls on TV and DVD and there's an episode where Rose, Dorothy and Blanche are doing a dance marathon and Rose accuses Dorothy of being tired and in response, Dorothy asks the band leader to play something "with a little octane". Why bring this up, you ask yourself? Because this performance definitely had a little octane, a little kick to it. I was surprised to find out that he was doing this since it's not a single and hasn't been, but it makes sense. It was early in the show and they want to get the energy in the building up, they want to get people pumped up for what's coming I'd say this song did that. This is among my top three performances of the night. I just loved it.
The mix was spot on and his band sounded terrific. As a fan of the band guys, I love that two of his came up to join him at the end of the walkway, thus allowing for a close up. I mentioned it earlier, one of the things that annoyed me about this awards show was how they never did close ups of whichever musician had the solo being played. For heaven's sake, these musicians are creating the bulk of the sound, you can highlight them during their solo. I feel rather strongly about this issue as you may have picked up on. Musicians need some love too, ya know? To shift gears to Chris himself, I thought he sounded great and my goodness, do you think he was enjoying himself during this? He seemed like he was having so much fun performing and I love that. I love seeing artists this enthusiastic about their music; it adds a kind of infectious energy that makes for such an enjoyable performance. Loved the visuals during this as well. It just makes you want to, well, save some water and drink some beer, am I right? Root beer for those of you under 21.
I have a bunch in my list to do and am hoping to get at least four done this week, if not more. I'll be starting off with Craig Morgan's This Ole Boy, Amy Dalley's Coming Out of the Pain, Casey James by Casey James and Chase Rice's Dirt Road Communion. That's more than likely going to be the order I do them in. Also on the lineup: Changed by Rascal Flatts, Hard 2 Love by Lee Brice, Up All Night by Kip Moore and Josh Abbott Band's Small Town Family Dreams. I might do one where I review a handful of EP's since there's been some new ones put out lately as well. All of that and Carrie Underwood's new one comes out tomorrow (May 1st) as I'm writing this. Goodness. I have a lot of listening to do. I'll mix in some non-album reviews in there. But yeah, the goal is to do those first four done by the end of this week.
But not before I do some more watching. Turning my focus back to the 2012 ACMs for the last time.
Starting off with the performance by the lone female artist left, Miranda Lambert who performed "Over You". First off, I loved the set up for this with the images of windows behind her and her band with images of a winter-y woods behind her. Nice nod to the video there. Really liked the snow falling down as well. It was kind of like a Broadway set in a way and as a person who loves musicals, I liked that. The band sounded good here, though the mix felt slightly off and I can't explain what sounds off about it. Maybe it's me. I just feel like something isn't as loud as it should be there. Not a big deal, obviously, since I can't identify it. Great delivery by Miranda here I felt and probably one of the most emotional performances of the night. I was expecting it to get a bigger response than it got. She got a good response, but I thought they'd do a standing ovation. A group of people did stand, but not everyone. But still, a good performance.
I picked out these remaining performances pretty deliberately as they were among my favorite performances of the night. There's a couple that were in other parts, but these were all up there for me. I began with Miranda and am going to shift gears to another blond artist, Mr. Dierks Bentley with his performance of "Home". There were a lot of great songs released last year and this is among the best in my opinion. It's maybe not my ultimate favorite of the year, but it's up there for me. Beautifully written song here. I loved the look of this performance, the way it started off with just Dierks and his guitar and the rest of the stage blacked out. And then the rest of the lights and the band kicking in at the same time. Perhaps my favorite visual moment from the show. Complete with the images on the video screen which really showcased what the song is about. I thought that Dierks and his band sounded great; his band is among my favorite backing bands.
Speaking of favorite backing bands, this next performance features another of my favorites. I'm talking about Jason Aldean and his performance of another wonderfully written song "Fly Over States". Now if I'm being objective, which I'm trying to be, I gotta point out that Jason had a couple of rough spots in there. If he happens to see this, he might argue with my need to point that out, but that's besides the point. It wasn't anything too bad, just a couple of spots near the beginning. It got better as it went along which makes me wonder if he was having some issues hearing himself early on, issues that maybe resolved themselves as he went on. Still a very solid vocal and the band was spot on. My favorite thing about this performance is actually not the song, but the set up. Did anyone notice anything special about it? Yes?
No? Well, if not, that's what I'm here for, so never fear. They recreated the video. And as a big fan of the music video, I loved that! I saw the video earlier today and they all appear to be dressed similarly even, if not the same in some cases. I could be wrong about, but seeing the video again and now watching the performance again it seems that way. It all looked so cool. They even had the walkway part as a runway of sorts.
From Aldean to Church. Eric Church, that is. Good ole Eric; the guy's been all over the country blogs and twitter today in what just may be the most blown out of proportion story there's been in a while. I'm not really going to get too into that now except to say that the events of today have inspired an upcoming blog. I've seen one that was kind of against him and I'll be coming at it more from his side since that's the side I've been on since the story broke. But that's a post for another time, now to focus on his performance of "Springsteen".
First off, if you read my review, you know I love this song. It's gotten a lot of praise and rightfully so, seems it even went gold recently. Congratulations to Eric on that; it really is a great song. And meanwhile, Eric Church plays the piano. Color me surprised. I liked the opening with just him and the piano, it added something different to the song, which is one of the cool things that can happen during an awards show. I'd like to see more artists tweak their songs on these kinds of shows. Doesn't have to be anything extreme, just mix it up a bit. I keep mentioning my favorite backing bands and you know what other band is among them? This one. These guys are a lot like the band members for the last two artists I talked about here in that they are perfectly suited for their lead singers. I'd say that the guys in all three of these bands; Eric's, Jason's and Dierks's; are among the most consistent. I thought Eric sounded good and liked how it looked visually. Great performance.
Well. After all of this time there is just one performance left, provided I didn't forget someone which I'm pretty positive I didn't. Again, if you read everything and think of someone, please let me know. Before I get to this last performance, which was actually the second of the night, I'd like to thank you for reading! And remind you that comments are more than welcome.
This last performances is by one of my favorite country artists; I just love this guy. This guy being Chris Yong and his crazy energetic performance of "Save Water, Drink Beer". This is going to be an odd thing to bring up at this moment, but I love watching Golden Girls on TV and DVD and there's an episode where Rose, Dorothy and Blanche are doing a dance marathon and Rose accuses Dorothy of being tired and in response, Dorothy asks the band leader to play something "with a little octane". Why bring this up, you ask yourself? Because this performance definitely had a little octane, a little kick to it. I was surprised to find out that he was doing this since it's not a single and hasn't been, but it makes sense. It was early in the show and they want to get the energy in the building up, they want to get people pumped up for what's coming I'd say this song did that. This is among my top three performances of the night. I just loved it.
The mix was spot on and his band sounded terrific. As a fan of the band guys, I love that two of his came up to join him at the end of the walkway, thus allowing for a close up. I mentioned it earlier, one of the things that annoyed me about this awards show was how they never did close ups of whichever musician had the solo being played. For heaven's sake, these musicians are creating the bulk of the sound, you can highlight them during their solo. I feel rather strongly about this issue as you may have picked up on. Musicians need some love too, ya know? To shift gears to Chris himself, I thought he sounded great and my goodness, do you think he was enjoying himself during this? He seemed like he was having so much fun performing and I love that. I love seeing artists this enthusiastic about their music; it adds a kind of infectious energy that makes for such an enjoyable performance. Loved the visuals during this as well. It just makes you want to, well, save some water and drink some beer, am I right? Root beer for those of you under 21.
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