Jamie's Peoria, IL Recap

First off, I have sort of a funny little story.  My brother and I got to the show early, so we were just walking around the outside of the venue to kill time.  Well, we were walking around the back of the civic center, and there was this fence with an area of construction stuff.  I saw some guy in there on one of those razor scooters, and I thought that was odd, so I turned to my brother and said, “Dude, I don’t think you’re supposed to be doing that” (I was pretending like I was talking to the scooter guy).  Well, as we got closer to the scooter guy, I realized that it was actually Ace!  Did we get a picture of him?  Uh…no.  I didn’t want to be all stalkerish.  He was clearly just out there having some fun relaxing, and I didn’t want to bother him.  But, some little girls did run up to him and he posed for a picture with them.  I thought that was sweet…we just kept on walking.

Now, on to the show:

Mandisa:  She looked great and was funny.  The bass was so loud that at times it was hard for me to hear her, but she was good overall.

Ace:  Now, when Ace came out and did his set before the intermission, the audience response was pretty much similar to the response for Kellie and the rest of the pre-intermission idols.  But, after the intermission during the group numbers, Ace got a much larger reaction.  That stumped my brother and I.  Anyways, there were times when Ace was fantastically cheesy (he did this chest thing where he pumped his chest out to the beats at the beginning of father figure…we laughed).  I also thoroughly enjoyed when he ran up the ramp and jumped off onto the stage and when he hopped on one foot and rested his leg on these bars on the aluminum foil set.  Seriously, I’m not being sarcastic…I actually enjoyed Ace a lot.

Lisa:  Nice voice.  Had on a shirt with a dangerously flimsy back.

Paris:  Seemed very choreographed.  I think maybe it was her birthday or something because at the end of the show, Taylor was following her around and pointing.  It was too loud to hear what he was saying.

Bucky:  I liked Bucky’s dance moves…thought they were very entertaining.

Kellie:  Sounded like she was hoarse or sick.  Thought she was a better singer than I ever did when she was on the show.

Chris:  Chris and Taylor got the loudest response of the night followed by Elliott and Ace.  There was this one section that must have been filled with Chris fans because they would show Chris’s picture on the screen and that section would scream.  We thought Chris was great.  He had a lot of energy and he really does have a very nice voice.  My brother and I came out of the concert saying that we would attend a Chris concert in the future if his album actually turns out well (Chris did mention about his album dropping in November).

Elliott:  During the Elliott/Chris duet, Elliott looked really hot…and by hot I mean he was sweating a lot.  Before the show, someone texted a message into that screen they have displayed, and it said, “Niner rocks my world.”  HA!  I laughed out loud at that.  He was adorable and I enjoyed his singing.

Katharine:  During Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, she asked the audience to sing, and my brother says to me, “Isn’t that ironic that she’s asking us to sing “no, no, you’re not the one for me” to her?”  The audience response was on par with that of Elliott and Ace.  What I heard of SOTR was fine, but I wasn’t paying attention because I was looking around for where Taylor was going to come out at (I was convinced he was going to come out by us---but he didn’t L).

Taylor:  The audience didn’t stand up the entire time (only the floor seats did)…I didn’t hear much singing on DIMYP either.  I don’t think we were a very good audience, but Kellie said we were the best yet.  Better than Virginia?  Better than North Carolina?  Better than Birmingham?  I think not.  Anyways, back to Taylor’s set.  He looked genuinely happy tonight.  There was lots of crazy dancing and tambourine banging…he played the harmonica on his knees.  He dropped his harmonica to the ground and shook his hand as if saying, “That’s HOT!”  When he went into the stage door at the end of his set, he sort of kept his feet together and fell forward and made it look like he was just going to fall flat on his face.  Taylor really got into the guitar playing.  All in all, I loved his set and can’t wait to see him in concert.  I would change a couple of things, though.  I wish he would have added Don’t Let Me Down back in (WHY oh WHY did he take that song out???), and I wish it had been Taylor we saw on that Razor scooter instead of Ace!