My Coke Fest concert review (Final 4, Indianapolis)

I had to leave home real early, hoping to get a good spot. During my 4hour road trip to Indianapolis, I was listening to carrie’s songs nonstop, except for the last half hour, where after stopping for gas I decided to play the other songs in my playlist lol

So I reached Indianapolis at around 11am, and proceeded to the south side of the monument circle, where the stage was set up. There were already quite a lot of people who were already in line! (gates opened at 130). Hungry, I decided to buy a jimmy johns sandwich to eat while in line. Apparently, it was a good idea. A number of people saw me eating in the line and they were like “that’s such a great idea! Lets eat sandwiches now so we don’t have to leave in between the concert for lunch!” and they promptly grabbed some food.

The weather forecast for Indianapolis was actually terrible. Reports throughout the week said there would be storms, with hail, during the concert. So there was this guy who was in front of me and he had his friend from the met center update him with the latest forecast. Soon, he had a call and he pumped his fist in joy! The storms wouldn’t be heading our way after all! Woohoo!

So, we were let in at 130, and I got a pretty decent spot. About 10 rows back, dead center! So the giant screen introduced the upcoming acts: Chris Brown (lots of screaming 10 year old girls for him, and I was surrounded by them!), collective soul (not much reaction), the wreckers (mot much reaction), [our] Carrie underwood and john mallencamp. OK, I need to say this, whoever suggested that most of carrie’s fans are teenage girls is absolutely wrong. The screaming 10 year olds for chris brown were silent for carrie; but carrie had massive cheers from college-aged guys. Indeed, her cheers were probably as loud as the cheers for the hometown guy, john mallencamp.

First all, I need to state that throughout the concert, there were problems with the sound system. Very disappointing. They already had another concert at the same place the day before, and you’d think they’d sort out the problems. The MC always appeared and her mic was always too soft. I couldn’t hear a thing of whatever chris brown was singing (not that it mattered to his fans, they seemed to really like his dancing), the lead singer of collective soul had to have his earpiece changed TWICE (he even took them off during two of his songs), michelle branch didn’t like how her guitar sounded and there was a short delay as they tried to sort it out on stage after her first song. For carrie, they took a whole 50 minutes to set the stage for her. One of her guitarists was really unpleased with the way his guitar sounded. As the stage crew tried to fix the problems, there were 4, maybe 5, spontaneous chants of “Carrie! Carrie! Carrie!”, led by college-aged guys, as the crowd were waiting (impatiently) for the problems to be fixed. During the concert, some of these guys hollered “Carrie I love you!” a few times.

I have to add that after being on my feet from 11, my back was hurting like hell. So, finally carrie came out (about 10 minutes after the scheduled start time) to “We’re Young and Beautiful”. This looks like her lead-off concert performance (she also led off with this song in Maine). And guess what? She was really shaking her booty and dancing to the song! I was so surprised! Not that she was running around the stage, but she was moving and dancing to that one! Miraculously, my back was no longer pain…


She then sang “That’s Where It Is” and I was impressed by her vocals again on this one. This has to be one of her best songs that she performs live. Awesome! She then sang Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”, and it seemed that her mic was turned down slightly? It was just weird cos there were spots on the song where it seemed they turned the mic up, only to turn it back down again for the majority of the song.

After that, she sang “Before He Cheats”, which was a crowd favorite. Everyone went nuts. She even did some flirty dances with her bass player (mark) and another of her guitarists. She even did something a lil naughty during the chorus. She was shaking her booty next to mark and looking at him. She then pinched him on his cheek and then pointed at him at the line “Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats”!


It was after “Before He Cheats” that one for her guitar players had to have his guitar fixed, more problems. They kept changing the cables and all that stuff. Carrie apologized to the crowd, saying this was their first show together. She then sat on a stool and thanked the crowd for attending despite the crappy weather, and introduced her bass player, mark. “This is mark. He likes long walks on the beach [the whole band laughed when she said this]. And ladies, he is still single!”

So after they sorted out the problems, she sang “starts with goodbye”. Ashley, her fiddle player, had a few stretches where he sang a whole line or two while Carrie was hitting the big notes. Nice change!

My favorite though, had to be DFTRM. It was done brilliantly in an acoustic setting. Carrie, with her 2 guitar players (I wish I knew their names haha), Ashley and Cherie sat on stools as a group. Her voice just shone on that one, without the glaring bass (which was too loud throughout the concert, not just for carrie, but for everyone). Beautiful, beautiful.

She then sang IYH with the same acoustic setting and she also played the guitar on that one! After that, she said, “although im a country girl, I do listen to other types of music too. This is something from Guns N Roses”, and she sang “Patience” and played the guitar too.

Then, she sand “Sweet Child of Mine” and totally ROCKED it out. She was moving all over the stage and was twirling her mic stand throughout like a true rocker! If I hadn’t followed her career so far, I would have thought she was a female rocker!

She then went backstage for a little while to remove her top layer (don’t worry, she had a tank-top underneath!), and then came out rocking to Lessons Learned!


She then performed “Wasted” which was brilliant. She nailed all the glory notes and sounded 10000 times better than on the CD.

She also did “The Night Before” which was just brilliant vocally, (but the dam bass was too loud). Ive always stated that I think DFTRM and “The Night Before” are the 2 songs which she does best vocally on, and based on the concert, I don’t see why I should be changing that opinion anytime. Just beautiful.

She then closed the show with JTTW. She thanked the crowd for giving her her first #1 single, and wow, she was 10000 times than on the CD again. It was after this, when walking away from the concert, that I realized my back was hurting lol

Carrie’s songlist:
Were young and beautiful
That’s where is it
Jolene
Before he cheats
Starts with goodbye
lessons learned
DFTRM
IYH
pateince
sweet child of mine
Wasted
Nite before
JTTW

Trivia:
We could send text messages that would be displayed on the jumbotron. So theres this message that was sent. Was it sent by me? :grin:


So overall, this sums it up. Carrie was GREAT. Her vocals were spot on (even though the mic was screwy in parts), but what impressed me most were her performance skills. Wow. I mean I would have still liked to see her in concert just to listen to that beautiful voice of hers, but now those critics who want to pick on her performance skills can just keep quiet now. And just like on the opry, she was so comfortable. She clearly has been getting really good constructive critiques from her team and working to becoming the total package. What a girl. Her vocals are enough to make her a superstar, but she isn’t interested in resting on her laurels and is working hard to improve. I say give her a year to really work on it, she’ll probably be better than that Colombian girl Shakira(sp?) in terms of shaking their booty. It was interesting to see her perform a couple of Guns N Roses songs here. I guess this was a basketball crowd so it was a little more appropriate, even though I would have preferred if she did “Stand by your Man” lol. Personally, I doubt she will be doing those songs during country fairs. Hopefully, she’ll sing “Stand by your Man” at them. And carrie has a LOT more college-aged guys as fans than people think it seems. Oh yea, I’ll give the sound crew for the concert an ‘F’ for the multiple screw-ups throughout.

My very Carrie day had another carrie part! On my way home, I stopped by for dinner at a McDonald’s. Guess what? They were playing “Some Hearts”!