American Idol Season 7 Tour: Initial Thoughts

On August 16, 2008 my mom and dad and I made the long 4 hour drive from Nashville to Lexington, KY to see the American Idol tour. We got to the hotel and I had an hour to get ready. We left on time and arrived at Rupp Arena what we felt like was early. But there was no one outside or inside. After we got past security and finding our seats it was then that we realized that we were late. Apparently Lexington is on Eastern time while Nashville is Central. So we missed Chikezie, Ramiele, and most of Michael Johns. We heard 'Dream On' while trying to find our seats so that was a bummer. After Michael Johns was Kristy Lee Cook who did an ok job but I was never a big fan of her's. Next was Carly who did amazing! She was so good. TV does not do her justice. After Carly was Brooke who definitely milked her time for all it was worth. See did everything from talking a lot to thanking the musicians, crew, hair, makeup, wardrobe, camera operators, etc. Then all of them came on stage to sing some song that I don't remember much of except that I felt like I was being force to watch a public service announcement due to the sad pictures and videos of kids from Africa they had playing on the screens.

Then intermisson came and there was some random guy dressed in a poptarts costume walking around taking pictures with people. Some guy came out whom I guessed was the MC for the tour except that he was a nobody and I didn't know his name since he didn't reintroduce himself. He did some lame product placement for Guitar Hero involving two guys playing, what else, Guitar Hero after which we had to vote for who we wanted to win. Then, right when you thought it was over and the show was going to start again, nope. More product placement for Guitar Hero. This time he took two little boys from the audience, one was 9 the other was 13, and played some music and they had to air guitar to the song. It was basicly a way to humiliate these kids. One got Guitar Hero for Nintendo DS and the other got it for Xbox.

So the show begins again with Jason Castro playing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'; ukilali and all. Let me tell you apparently Kentuky loves Jason Castro because they screamed so much for him. I don't get it. His set let felt like only two songs. I guess I missed the other because they all sounded the same. Next was Syesha and she was awesome. She started with 'Umbrella' which was good then moved on to 'If I can't have you' and 'Listen'. Although her dress was so short but that was minor.

Then came my boy, the one I came to see, David Archuleta. He was amazing! He opened with 'Angels' and this boy on the floor who was wearing a blue David Archuleta shirt was crying, pretty hard I guess because he wiped his eyes multiple times. It was really funny. Then during one song, I cant remember which one really, he did this dance that reminded me of tap dancing but not really. Anyway, he was amazing and cute as always.

Then was David Cook who by far, out of the people I saw had the most entertaining show by interacting with the audience a lot. He kept throwing guitar picks and even threw out his water bottle into the audience. Someone had a sign that said 'Free the Gnomes' and he asked them what that was about and they were just like 'free the gnomes' to which he responded 'ok, Free the Gnomes everybody!'. Later he was singing and took a girl's phone and sang into the phone while on stage. I'm sure the girl on the other line was freaking out. Last everyone came out to sing 'Don't Stop the Music' and you could totally see Michael Johns's funny side. Him and David Cook did this patty cake hand clap during the song and then when Effie (David Archuleta) did a little dance Michael poked fun at him by copying Effie behind Effie's back. It was all in good fun though. You could totally understand why everyone voted him funniest because he definitely was. Really made me wish that I had not missed his set. At the very end David Cook took the Gnomes poster and held it up on stage, said his little thanks for coming, poptarts product placement, and then said 'and remember Free the Gnomes' and took the poster as he went down under the stage on the lift.

Overall the performances were awesome and really funny. However when Cook started playing his guitar there was so much distortion that it created really bad static. Also the music was really load so sometimes I couldn't hear the singers. I also was not able to record any video because my camera is very sensitive about sound and the quality would have just been static and bad so it wasn't worth my time to try and record anything. Nothing I needed to record anyway. Only thing I wish I'd gotten on camera was David Cook and the cell phone and the final song.

A great show that I'm glad I saw. But I'm seriously going to write a petition to TIcketmaster to have them include the time zone on the tickets. I know that you should know what time zone you are in but it's not my number one priority when traveling, It's not like I think 'ok, I need to look up the weather, directions and time zone of the place I'm visiting'. I'm just mad that I missed Michael Johns... Oh well.