Month of Gratitude Day 20: Fun times

I'm grateful that my wonderful daughter Sara arranged for a fun outing last night.  We went to Salt Lake City to see Michael Buble in concert at the Energy Solutions Arena.  I've never been in this venue before and it was quite impressive.  My apologies for the poor quality of the pictures.  Our eye view was much better.

The evening started at 4:00 with a drive to Salt Lake.  My brother Rob and his wife Sue picked me up and then we picked up Sara.  When we got to Salt Lake we checked in at the Kimball condominium, which is just a bit more than two blocks from Energy Solutions Arena.  We got three rooms because Bryce was landing in Salt Lake that evening after his business trip, and at the last minute Rob decided to come along.  Shortly after we checked in, we picked up Rob and Sue's daughter Alaina at the train station.  Alaina and Sara shared a room that had two bathrooms and two beds - great for them!  Sara's mother-in-law Vonnie met us at the Kimball and was also able to park there during the concert because the three rooms gave us three parking passes.  That was wonderfully convenient because we had just a short walk back after the concert and didn't have to fight crowds at all.  With our ownership rights at the Kimball, our "bonus night" rooms cost only $65.00 each.

We had planned to get dinner somewhere near the arena, but with Rob coming along, we had a driver to drop us right at the venue so we could be more free with our meal choice.  We thought we'd do PF Changs, but the wait was over an hour and when we finally got to the restaurant we had only about 90 minutes left before the concert was to begin.  Rob had dropped us off and gone to park, and when we found out the long wait, he walked across the street to "Red Rock" and got us a table.  The place was busy, but they got us fed and out in time to get to the concert right on time.  The food was tasty too.  I will definitely take Bryce back there sometime.

Sara got us great seats, high above the crowd but center facing the stage.  The sound was excellent and we could see the screens.  We had only one row between us and the edge (which is a good thing because the edge can be a little scary), and the rows were steep enough that the people in front of us had their heads at our knee level. 

 The opening act was "Naturally7" which is an A Capella group that uses what they call "Vocal Play."  They make all their sounds with their voices, including all the percussion and instrumental sounds.  They came out later in the show to do a couple of numbers with Michael as well.

When it was time for Michael to come out, flames shot up and the background became flames as he opened with "Fever" and the crowd erupted.  

 The backgrounds moved with three dimensional graphics that changed with each song.  When Michael was talking, or sometimes when he was singing, they featured him large on the center screen, but he was always on the two smaller side screens so we could see his face well. 

  Here's just one example of the 3D backgrounds that came up.  This one was smoke swirling.

In the middle of the show they did a set of slower songs with a string backup.  I was delighted when they focused on the string players and I recognized at least one of them from our own American Festival Orchestra. 

 

Michael commented that he didn't travel with string players and told us that these were our own local people.  He said "I bet some of them are Mormon.  Raise your hand if you're Mormon," and most of them raised their hands.  With an exclamation of surprise, he told the audience of 10,000, "Raise your hands if you're Mormon," and a huge cheer with many upraised hands went up.  Michael exclaimed "I feel left out!"  We all wanted to yell, "We can fix that!"

During the song "All You Need is Love," tissue hearts exploded from guns in the ceiling and sides and floated through the air.  It was very impressive.

At the end, he said good night and left, but the crowd kept cheering and applauding and the lights didn't come up, so we knew he would come back out with an encore.  He did, and in a sparkly jacket.  He commented that we were the most electric crowd he had ever worked with (we think he says that to all his crowds.)  After three more songs, Michael brought five little kids up on the stage with him and sang "You've Got a Friend in Me."

 Finally, at the very end, Michael put away the microphone, took off his hearing devices and sang into the open space without any amplification.  It was an awesome way to end the show and felt like a personal connection to each of us.  After singing a big show like that, to be able to push only his voice into that great space so that we could hear was very impressive.

It was a fabulous, fun night and I'm grateful that my daughter Sara organized it for us.

If you want to read a professional write up of the show, here's a link.  

This morning we had a tasty breakfast with the whole group (minus Vonnie) of Rob and Sue's own fresh eggs (from their chickens, they didn't lay them) and more of the donuts we enjoyed after the show last night and traveled safely home.