Christian Kane at The Stoney Inn 2/23/11
Christian Kane is at the top of a new list: bands I would go to Sacramento to see again. The concert was fucking awesome, and the experience was tons of fun.
The Stoney Inn is a funky place: you come into the small front bar, which has karaoke, stairs to a tiny upstairs area, bathrooms, and the door to the back bar/performance space. In the back bar, there are tables and bar-height seating around the dance floor that's right in front of the stage. (If you paid for either level of expensive tickets, you got a reserved seat. The rest of us stood, which was fine with me and norwich36 hung around the edges and sat when someone either didn't show up or vacated their reserved seat.)
The first opener was a girl named Pammie Lowe. Everything she was wearing sparkled. Her bassist and drummer were about as young as she was (I found an article saying she was 21 as of November 2010). Her two guitarists (she was also playing guitar) and the keyboardist were all old enough to be her dad, or possibly even her grandpa. (If you've seen Country Strong, Pammie Lowe reminded me a bit of the first time we see Chiles on stage, only with less stage presence and no stage fright.) There was a woman on the dance floor trying to get people to dance. I assume it was Pammie Lowe's aunt as mom was probably the woman right in front of the stage taking pictures. There were a few truly skilled couples who did some country swing dancing, and the people who seemed to be Stoney Inn regulars eventually started line dancing. After the first one, I joined in even though I didn't know what I was doing - the regulars were used to this and kept pointing us newbies in the right direction - which was tons of fun.
Pammie Lowe
The second opener was the Brodie Stewart Band. They did a couple of covers that were fun - including Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive," which only made us feel more like we were in a J2 AU - but that's really all there is to say about them. The most notable thing about their set is that there is a teeny tiny balcony area up above the stage, and Steve was up there watching for part of it. (I decided not to be ultra creepy and refrained from taking a picture of him up there.)
Between sets, there was line dancing, and I mean serious line dancing. The dance floor cleared enough space for a large group of people to line dance and then the DJ called each dance and counted everyone in. There were two women I couldn't stop watching.
Note the coordinated outfits.
This is not the best picture of them, but you can get the idea. They spent a lot of time dancing together, which was interesting in that it wasn't quite the girls dancing together for the attention of men thing (although the two drunk guys with cowboy hats - Jared and Jensen in the AU - did come dance with them a bit later, which kind of ruined my enjoyment of them for those brief periods of time), but more that they were just having fun. Both norwich36 and I hope they're actually lesbians and not just friends out having fun together. (In the AU, they're Danneel and Katy Cassidy. Alternately, I now kind of want to read or write a country novel where there's a lesbian couple and a gay couple and they go to shows together because it's less dangerous/more socially acceptable.)
Kane (at the very end, Chris said, "We're Kane," which was awesome since I thought they'd abandoned that as a band name and were doing everything under Christian Kane) finally came on around ten. They were so fucking awesome. I'm an Original Kaniac (as silly as the term is), so obviously I was going to think they were awesome, but they really were totally awesome. I worked my way up so I was in the thick of the crowd (maybe five or six people deep from the stage), and despite being short, I managed to see both Chris and Steve. People, I don't know how to tell you how much I loved this experience, so let me stick to highlights:
Most of the people crowded right up to the stage were average looking middle-aged women who knew the words to every song but the one none of us had heard before. One of the women near me looked around, startled, when all of us knew the lyrics to "Different Kind of Knight."
Chris is so adorable. He comes off as kind of an inarticulate jerk in interviews (or used to - maybe I need to watch some more recent ones to see if this is still true), but he was just cute on stage. He's also a lot smaller in person. I'm sure he's strong, but Steve's a little bigger than him and could probably hold him down and make him like it. (This might prompt me to actually finish my space AU where that's part of what happens.)
Steve is fucking hot. I've seen a lot of pictures of Steve, and he's even hotter in person.
While introducing the band, Chris called their bassist (whose name I never did catch) "beautiful," and he really is a pretty kid. Chris, Steve, and Jason (lead guitar) are all in their mid thirties; Ryan (the drummer) and the bassist are probably no more than twenty-five.
You know all that stuff about Chris drinking on stage? Totally true. He had a bottle of Jack that he and Steve, and sometimes Ryan and a couple of audience members, were swigging from. He also had a beer, and someone handed Steve a shot from the floor.
Other small Chris and Steve moments: Chris went to say something to Steve, and he sort of stood behind him and said it into his shoulder (presumably so we couldn't see it), which was adorable. At another point, Steve was near the back of the stage, facing away, and Chris went over and didn't quite lean on him to look over his shoulder. (I love that pose.) They were singing to each other on "Callin' All Country Women."
There was also (brief) mic sharing, which is almost as amazing as clothes sharing. There were three mics - one each for Chris, Steve, and Jason. Steve went over to play to Jason, and started back to his side of the stage but didn't get that far before it was time to chime in on backing vocals, so he just shared Chris's mic. I did not get a picture of this, but I really, really, really hope someone else did and that I can find it.
The most Chris/Steve moment was after the show. I mentioned that the front bar has stairs to an upstairs area (that's where the meet and greet was). The upstairs area also has this cutout with a railing where you can look down into the front bar - or people from the front bar can look up into the upstairs area. The band headed up to the upstairs area after the show, and a bunch of us (the dedicated enough to wait around but not dedicated enough to buy the expensive meet and greet crowd) were hanging around in the bar area watching to see if Chris was going to come down and hang out/sign things/take pictures. (I have no idea if he did. We managed to catch Steve when he came down to gather up his stuff from the stage, but Chris outwaited me and we left around one.) This means we could see Chris follow Steve into the bathroom and not come back out for ten minutes. Now, let me explain: we used that bathroom earlier in the evening, before they cordoned off the upstairs for meet and greet. It's a single person bathroom with a toilet, a sink, two full-length mirrors, a door I'm pretty sure was just a storage closet, and a green linoleum floor that creaked enough to make you think it might not hold. We, of course, had a lot of ideas about what they might have been doing. (If you didn't think, "post-show sex," you're clearly not on our fangirl wavelength.)
Speaking of fangirls, it was a venue full of us! There were two women who looked specifically familiar (they may have gone to Escapade, but I didn't accost them and introduce myself) and a lot of generally fannish types. There were also a couple of women in Kane shirts who were waiting around with us. One of them said something about not looking desperate. I said I didn't mind looking desperate, but I did have an hour and a half drive home. They asked where I was from, and then told me that one of them is from Red Bluff and the other from Wheatland. They seemed to be country fans more than our variety of fangirl, but they were also glad to know they weren't the only ones in the northern part of the state.
I was surprised by how many men there were for such a fangirl gathering. Women outnumbered men, but not by that much. Some of them were clearly men who were there with their female partners, but some of them were there for Kane. One of them was a totally cowboy guy who had a meet and greet wristband and was one of the people right up against the stage. Chris offered him the bottle of Jack and said, "This guy rides bulls. He can do whatever he wants."
My one complaint about the show is the same complaint I've had about every other live music event I've been to in recent days: the sound mix was done in such a way that we couldn't hear the vocals very well.
Steve, Chris, and Ryan
Chris and Ryan
Chris
Me with Steve!
Out of order (but complete, I think) set list: The House Rules; Callin' All Country Women; American Made; Let's Take a Drive; Let Me Go (Chris said this is going to be the next single); Thinking of You; Whiskey In Mind; Seven Days; Middle American Saturday Night; Luckenbach, Texas; something of Jason's that I didn't catch the name of (maybe "Faith"? It was the one song none of us knew); Blaze; and Rattlesnake Smile as the encore.
The Stoney Inn is a funky place: you come into the small front bar, which has karaoke, stairs to a tiny upstairs area, bathrooms, and the door to the back bar/performance space. In the back bar, there are tables and bar-height seating around the dance floor that's right in front of the stage. (If you paid for either level of expensive tickets, you got a reserved seat. The rest of us stood, which was fine with me and norwich36 hung around the edges and sat when someone either didn't show up or vacated their reserved seat.)
The first opener was a girl named Pammie Lowe. Everything she was wearing sparkled. Her bassist and drummer were about as young as she was (I found an article saying she was 21 as of November 2010). Her two guitarists (she was also playing guitar) and the keyboardist were all old enough to be her dad, or possibly even her grandpa. (If you've seen Country Strong, Pammie Lowe reminded me a bit of the first time we see Chiles on stage, only with less stage presence and no stage fright.) There was a woman on the dance floor trying to get people to dance. I assume it was Pammie Lowe's aunt as mom was probably the woman right in front of the stage taking pictures. There were a few truly skilled couples who did some country swing dancing, and the people who seemed to be Stoney Inn regulars eventually started line dancing. After the first one, I joined in even though I didn't know what I was doing - the regulars were used to this and kept pointing us newbies in the right direction - which was tons of fun.
Pammie Lowe
The second opener was the Brodie Stewart Band. They did a couple of covers that were fun - including Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive," which only made us feel more like we were in a J2 AU - but that's really all there is to say about them. The most notable thing about their set is that there is a teeny tiny balcony area up above the stage, and Steve was up there watching for part of it. (I decided not to be ultra creepy and refrained from taking a picture of him up there.)
Between sets, there was line dancing, and I mean serious line dancing. The dance floor cleared enough space for a large group of people to line dance and then the DJ called each dance and counted everyone in. There were two women I couldn't stop watching.
Note the coordinated outfits.
This is not the best picture of them, but you can get the idea. They spent a lot of time dancing together, which was interesting in that it wasn't quite the girls dancing together for the attention of men thing (although the two drunk guys with cowboy hats - Jared and Jensen in the AU - did come dance with them a bit later, which kind of ruined my enjoyment of them for those brief periods of time), but more that they were just having fun. Both norwich36 and I hope they're actually lesbians and not just friends out having fun together. (In the AU, they're Danneel and Katy Cassidy. Alternately, I now kind of want to read or write a country novel where there's a lesbian couple and a gay couple and they go to shows together because it's less dangerous/more socially acceptable.)
Kane (at the very end, Chris said, "We're Kane," which was awesome since I thought they'd abandoned that as a band name and were doing everything under Christian Kane) finally came on around ten. They were so fucking awesome. I'm an Original Kaniac (as silly as the term is), so obviously I was going to think they were awesome, but they really were totally awesome. I worked my way up so I was in the thick of the crowd (maybe five or six people deep from the stage), and despite being short, I managed to see both Chris and Steve. People, I don't know how to tell you how much I loved this experience, so let me stick to highlights:
Most of the people crowded right up to the stage were average looking middle-aged women who knew the words to every song but the one none of us had heard before. One of the women near me looked around, startled, when all of us knew the lyrics to "Different Kind of Knight."
Chris is so adorable. He comes off as kind of an inarticulate jerk in interviews (or used to - maybe I need to watch some more recent ones to see if this is still true), but he was just cute on stage. He's also a lot smaller in person. I'm sure he's strong, but Steve's a little bigger than him and could probably hold him down and make him like it. (This might prompt me to actually finish my space AU where that's part of what happens.)
Steve is fucking hot. I've seen a lot of pictures of Steve, and he's even hotter in person.
While introducing the band, Chris called their bassist (whose name I never did catch) "beautiful," and he really is a pretty kid. Chris, Steve, and Jason (lead guitar) are all in their mid thirties; Ryan (the drummer) and the bassist are probably no more than twenty-five.
You know all that stuff about Chris drinking on stage? Totally true. He had a bottle of Jack that he and Steve, and sometimes Ryan and a couple of audience members, were swigging from. He also had a beer, and someone handed Steve a shot from the floor.
Other small Chris and Steve moments: Chris went to say something to Steve, and he sort of stood behind him and said it into his shoulder (presumably so we couldn't see it), which was adorable. At another point, Steve was near the back of the stage, facing away, and Chris went over and didn't quite lean on him to look over his shoulder. (I love that pose.) They were singing to each other on "Callin' All Country Women."
There was also (brief) mic sharing, which is almost as amazing as clothes sharing. There were three mics - one each for Chris, Steve, and Jason. Steve went over to play to Jason, and started back to his side of the stage but didn't get that far before it was time to chime in on backing vocals, so he just shared Chris's mic. I did not get a picture of this, but I really, really, really hope someone else did and that I can find it.
The most Chris/Steve moment was after the show. I mentioned that the front bar has stairs to an upstairs area (that's where the meet and greet was). The upstairs area also has this cutout with a railing where you can look down into the front bar - or people from the front bar can look up into the upstairs area. The band headed up to the upstairs area after the show, and a bunch of us (the dedicated enough to wait around but not dedicated enough to buy the expensive meet and greet crowd) were hanging around in the bar area watching to see if Chris was going to come down and hang out/sign things/take pictures. (I have no idea if he did. We managed to catch Steve when he came down to gather up his stuff from the stage, but Chris outwaited me and we left around one.) This means we could see Chris follow Steve into the bathroom and not come back out for ten minutes. Now, let me explain: we used that bathroom earlier in the evening, before they cordoned off the upstairs for meet and greet. It's a single person bathroom with a toilet, a sink, two full-length mirrors, a door I'm pretty sure was just a storage closet, and a green linoleum floor that creaked enough to make you think it might not hold. We, of course, had a lot of ideas about what they might have been doing. (If you didn't think, "post-show sex," you're clearly not on our fangirl wavelength.)
Speaking of fangirls, it was a venue full of us! There were two women who looked specifically familiar (they may have gone to Escapade, but I didn't accost them and introduce myself) and a lot of generally fannish types. There were also a couple of women in Kane shirts who were waiting around with us. One of them said something about not looking desperate. I said I didn't mind looking desperate, but I did have an hour and a half drive home. They asked where I was from, and then told me that one of them is from Red Bluff and the other from Wheatland. They seemed to be country fans more than our variety of fangirl, but they were also glad to know they weren't the only ones in the northern part of the state.
I was surprised by how many men there were for such a fangirl gathering. Women outnumbered men, but not by that much. Some of them were clearly men who were there with their female partners, but some of them were there for Kane. One of them was a totally cowboy guy who had a meet and greet wristband and was one of the people right up against the stage. Chris offered him the bottle of Jack and said, "This guy rides bulls. He can do whatever he wants."
My one complaint about the show is the same complaint I've had about every other live music event I've been to in recent days: the sound mix was done in such a way that we couldn't hear the vocals very well.
Steve, Chris, and Ryan
Chris and Ryan
Chris
Me with Steve!
Out of order (but complete, I think) set list: The House Rules; Callin' All Country Women; American Made; Let's Take a Drive; Let Me Go (Chris said this is going to be the next single); Thinking of You; Whiskey In Mind; Seven Days; Middle American Saturday Night; Luckenbach, Texas; something of Jason's that I didn't catch the name of (maybe "Faith"? It was the one song none of us knew); Blaze; and Rattlesnake Smile as the encore.