Kris Allen Birthday Concert!!
I was at Kris's birthday concert in Albuquerque, New Mexico yesterday, here is my recap and some pictures.
So I almost didn't make it, since I live about 4 hours away and I don't drive, so my boyfriend agreed to go with me. His car wasn't working right and wouldn't have made the trip so we had to get a rental and there were issues but we managed to get a minivan and only leave about 2 hours later than we planned. tl;dr: My boyfriend is amazing and we made it there on time Oh, and apparently, GRO and Kris Allen and the band stayed at the same hotel that we did last night, which I was unaware of until my boyfriend met Jamey the guitarist from GRO in the elevator this morning who told him that Kris had already left. So fml forever that we never ran into them in the hotel.
Since we left late, we made it to the venue at about 7:30, half an hour after doors opened. The venue was TINY and extremely hot, which was kind of miserable but we got a place that was about 7 people from the stage on the left, so we still had a pretty good view. There were a lot more guys in the audience than I had expected. You could tell that some were like mine and just came with their girlfriends but there were several that acted like they were there because they were Kris fans. There was one guy that I could see from where I was that was really getting into it and moving around and singing and screaming. There was a big group of guys that screamed a lot, which was awesome to hear. There were a lot of thumbs up (the Facebook "like" sign according to the guys that were near me)
GRO came on, introduced themselves, mentioned that they were from Texas. Their set was fun, I hadn't heard a whole lot of their stuff before but they were pretty good and looked like they were having a blast. In the middle of their set, Andrew, Cale, and Torres came out (probably Ryland too, I just couldn't see him) and they all sang happy birthday to GRO's drummer, since his birthday was the day before. The lead singer of GRO dedicated the show to the birth of Kris Allen and his mom who made the event possible.
Then Kris came on. For a crowd that wasn't any bigger than it was, they were very excitable. I think we sang Happy Birthday 6 or 7 times before Kris even came out. This was the first time I had gotten to hear Kris live, and OMFG people are not exaggerating when they say he sounds even better live. He has so much energy and puts so much passion into all of his songs onstage, from the slow, emotional ones to the fun, faster-paced songs. He was talking between songs (I fail and can't remember which two though) and asked if he had just heard a guy yell that they wanted to have his babbies. He said he wasn't sure how that worked then said he should probably stop talking or this would end up on YouTube or TMZ (lolz)
In the middle, GRO came back out with hats and horns and tossed them into the crowd and everyone sang Happy Birthday to him again. They brought him a cake and he had a piece on stage, said it was cold and looked sexy while he tilted his head back to eat most of it in one bite. He talked about the #AlrightWithMoo project, said it was an awesome birthday present and talked about how it raised so much more than the people who organized it initially thought (he wasn't sure who's idea it was), said he failed at math when he couldn't figure out how many cows that was.
The crowd involvement was great on AWM, MitM, LLWD, and Come Together. There was a lot of participation from both the guys and the girls. BiB and FS/WOWY mashup nearly killed me, as those were the two songs I really wanted to hear and was hoping that he did, since I wasn't really expecting INTK. He talked a little bit about how MitM was one of the first things America heard him sing on Idol in top 36, mentioned that everyone was mad at him when they announced Michael Jackson week because they had wanted to sing it.
I have run out of things that I remember off the top of my head, but he sounded incredible. I really hope that we get some good quality video out of this show soon. So here are some pretty pictures.
So I almost didn't make it, since I live about 4 hours away and I don't drive, so my boyfriend agreed to go with me. His car wasn't working right and wouldn't have made the trip so we had to get a rental and there were issues but we managed to get a minivan and only leave about 2 hours later than we planned. tl;dr: My boyfriend is amazing and we made it there on time Oh, and apparently, GRO and Kris Allen and the band stayed at the same hotel that we did last night, which I was unaware of until my boyfriend met Jamey the guitarist from GRO in the elevator this morning who told him that Kris had already left. So fml forever that we never ran into them in the hotel.
Since we left late, we made it to the venue at about 7:30, half an hour after doors opened. The venue was TINY and extremely hot, which was kind of miserable but we got a place that was about 7 people from the stage on the left, so we still had a pretty good view. There were a lot more guys in the audience than I had expected. You could tell that some were like mine and just came with their girlfriends but there were several that acted like they were there because they were Kris fans. There was one guy that I could see from where I was that was really getting into it and moving around and singing and screaming. There was a big group of guys that screamed a lot, which was awesome to hear. There were a lot of thumbs up (the Facebook "like" sign according to the guys that were near me)
GRO came on, introduced themselves, mentioned that they were from Texas. Their set was fun, I hadn't heard a whole lot of their stuff before but they were pretty good and looked like they were having a blast. In the middle of their set, Andrew, Cale, and Torres came out (probably Ryland too, I just couldn't see him) and they all sang happy birthday to GRO's drummer, since his birthday was the day before. The lead singer of GRO dedicated the show to the birth of Kris Allen and his mom who made the event possible.
Then Kris came on. For a crowd that wasn't any bigger than it was, they were very excitable. I think we sang Happy Birthday 6 or 7 times before Kris even came out. This was the first time I had gotten to hear Kris live, and OMFG people are not exaggerating when they say he sounds even better live. He has so much energy and puts so much passion into all of his songs onstage, from the slow, emotional ones to the fun, faster-paced songs. He was talking between songs (I fail and can't remember which two though) and asked if he had just heard a guy yell that they wanted to have his babbies. He said he wasn't sure how that worked then said he should probably stop talking or this would end up on YouTube or TMZ (lolz)
In the middle, GRO came back out with hats and horns and tossed them into the crowd and everyone sang Happy Birthday to him again. They brought him a cake and he had a piece on stage, said it was cold and looked sexy while he tilted his head back to eat most of it in one bite. He talked about the #AlrightWithMoo project, said it was an awesome birthday present and talked about how it raised so much more than the people who organized it initially thought (he wasn't sure who's idea it was), said he failed at math when he couldn't figure out how many cows that was.
Click to viewThe crowd involvement was great on AWM, MitM, LLWD, and Come Together. There was a lot of participation from both the guys and the girls. BiB and FS/WOWY mashup nearly killed me, as those were the two songs I really wanted to hear and was hoping that he did, since I wasn't really expecting INTK. He talked a little bit about how MitM was one of the first things America heard him sing on Idol in top 36, mentioned that everyone was mad at him when they announced Michael Jackson week because they had wanted to sing it.
I have run out of things that I remember off the top of my head, but he sounded incredible. I really hope that we get some good quality video out of this show soon. So here are some pretty pictures.