It's very rare when you get to attend a concert where BOTH acts are amongst your absolute favorites. And when both of those acts just happen to be superstars, well needless to say only good things can happen when you put them together. Last night, the Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Carnival Ride tour hit the local Southern California area... and though it look almost two hours and 45 minutes to get to the Honda Center in Anaheim from my home in Thousand Oaks (but only an hour and 10 minutes to get back), it was so worth it!
Over the past few years since Carrie won Idol, I've made many great friends here locally who share the same love and passion for Carrie and her music. I got to hang out with three of the best of them before the concert - Reg, Vinman and Jeff (all of whom I've enjoyed previous Carrie concerts with)... we had a blast catching up on things for about an hour before the show and just talking about Carrie and her music. I even ran into Jaysmine from the Carrie Underwood fanclub (who bought my extra ticket for the show) and her Mom before the concert. 
As for the show itself, Carrie opened about 10 minutes before 8 pm with what could well be her fifth single from her Carnival Ride album, "Flat On The Floor." Next up was one of her biggest hits from the Some Hearts album, "Wasted." Carrie then broke into several selections from the new album including her brand new single, "Last Name." 
Perhaps the best moment of Carrie's solo show was when she performed the first of her six consecutive #1 Country hits, "Jesus, Take The Wheel." Nearly 50 minutes into the show, she broke into her latest #1 hit, "All-American Girl." In case you haven't seen the video yet for that one, please do so... it's definitely one of the best ones she's ever done! Carrie definitely did save the best for last though. Her two song encore consisted of a cover of the Guns N' Roses classic, "Paradise City" and it closed with her multi-format smash hit "Before He Cheats." The crowd REALLY got into those last two songs, and she left everyone thirsting for more!!!
The intermission was a good 45 minutes and I got to catch up with some more of my friends including Sharkbait (Paula) and Katie from the fanclub. We also happened to run into our good buddy, morning DJ Shawn Parr from Go Country 105 (who's operating on a caffeine buzz as I type this) during the break! 
Just before 9:45 pm, "part deux" of the show started as Keith broke into the first hit single from his Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing CD. Keith thrilled the crowd with songs covering his whole career. Some of the highlights included "Raining On Sunday," "Days Go By," "Stupid Boy," and "Tonight I Wanna Cry" before closing his set with "Somebody Like You." 
The highlight of the night for many of us though was when the band started playing the chords to the Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks classic "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" almost the lyrics to the Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks classic "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" almost an hour into his set. Carrie stepped back onto the stage and played Stevie's part. The crowd went wild! Some of us who've been following the tour already knew this was coming, but still it was great to see, and man did they pull it off! What a concert, what a night... one that I won't forget for a VERY long time!
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