Saturday, August 16, 2008

One-Upped with Sheryl Crow

If you read my blog last week, you know about my extravagant date I planned for my husband and myself that involved ice skating. I must tell you how glad I am I set the bar so high for date planning.

Fermin surprised me with great tickets to see one of my favorite singers of all time, Sheryl Crow! What was great for us, but not so great for Sheryl, was that the tickets didn't sell so well, so Fermin was able to get great seats for only $40 each! Nearly half of what face-value was.

Sheryl is so cool and seeing her is worth far more than just the $40. The first time Fermin and I went to see her was when she toured of her second album and the Wallflowers opened up for her. Of course, she was great, but then she was off-the-charts-great when we saw her years later for the C'mon, C'mon tour. She was a ROCKSTAR at that point. I remember she wore her Red, White and Blue sparkly pants and opened up with the "Steve McQueen" song. She had changed a bunch as a performer in the years between those two concerts.

And then, we saw her at the Austin City Limits Festival in Austin. It was back when she was dating Lance Armstrong. I remember, he brought a guitar out to her.

Now, just a couple of years later, we saw her at Superpages/Smirnoff/Starplex. And she is still just as great but you can tell, she's been thru a lot of changes. Now her songs have a strong political message. And she's allowed to get away with it because, well, she's Sheryl Crow. And because she's smart enough to sprinkle in stuff like "All I Wanna Do", and "Soak Up the Sun", so it doesn't too heavy for anyone.

Sheryl adopted a child over a year ago, after her bout with breast cancer, and her break-up with Lance. So of course, she would have some strong feelings about messages she wants to put out into the world. I so admire that she's not just about writing hit songs, but about singing songs that have significant meaning.

I LOVE Sheryl. It's great to have such a cool FEMALE musicians to be inspired by.

Fermin likes her too, but I know he got those tickets knowing how much I would LOVE getting to see her. It was really such a surprise and I was so happy! I have to admit, Sheryl is even better than ice-skating at the Galleria! Way, way better.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish I could have caught the show. Wonder how you liked J. Blunt and Toots.

kerri said...

I had seen James Blunt when he opened for Jason Mraz, but that's before "You're Beautiful" got so much, too much, airplay.

I thought it was interesting that he still seems to have so many fans that gush over that song.

His hair is longer, and he looks very 70's. He cracked me up really. Sheryl had him come back out and sing "The First Cut is the Deepest" which I thought was so appropriate for him.

I missed Toots- But he came out for the final song- Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground. And it was really, really cool that Sheryl ended the show that way.

So clearly, I went to see Sheryl. The other two, not so much.