Today marks one month since I started this blog! Thank you to everyone who has been reading along! This has been a really fun process so far! As I'm writing this, I am listening to Brett Kissel and I'm just like, "Wow, I got to interview him?!" That being said, I don't always have an interview for each post, but I can tell you that I have a few lined up that I hope will take place in the next couple of weeks.
When starting this writing adventure, I always worried that I wouldn't have enough content for two posts every week. That's 104 stories in a year! So I knew that besides interviews, I'd have to include some of my own experiences. As you probably know, I go to a lot of concerts each year and I take a lot of photos at each one if I'm allowed. What I didn't know when I overhauled this website was that trying to upload three years worth of my favourite photos, even if it was only 25 or 30 took a very long time. This is why my photography page is so lacking. On the days I don't have an article to share, I would like to compensate for my photography page by posting about the concerts I attend throughout the year.
January was oddly a very busy month for me. I hate going out in the winter, but I saw Scott Helman on a Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the next day, Wes Barker on the following Tuesday and Tim Hicks on the Saturday after that. February is not as busy for me (yet) so I think I will revisit my Scott Helman and Tim Hicks photos another time, but for today, I'd like to share some photos from Dierks Bentley's "What the Hell World Tour" with special guests, Cole Swindell and Jon Pardi. I attended the London, ON show at Budweiser Gardens on January 29, 2017.
Dierks Bentley
Everything went smoothly for me on this outing for the most part. The only sad thing was that the show was on a Sunday and Paratransit (a specialized bus service that I use to get around when a city bus is not suitable) requires that the busses are off the road by 11PM, meaning I had to be home well before the concert was over. So I missed some of Dierks' bigger songs like "Drunk On a Plane" and "Somewhere On a Beach", but I creeped some Instagram accounts and got caught up the next day. It's not the same but at least I was able to go home and not stranded somewhere on Dundas St. in the cold. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.
Another thing with Paratransit is that you may or may not be the only passenger. This time I was, but the week before when I went to see Tim Hicks was a nightmare when we had to pick up a lady named Ethel and a bunch of other people. More on that another day. So, anyway, for this show, we went straight there and I was very early. So I did what any sensible person would do in the winter, which was wait outside for nearly two hours looking for any sign of Dierks, Cole or Jon. For the record, I saw none of them. NONE.
Not even asking "Can Dierks come out to play?" on social media helped my cause.
What the Hell, Dierks? What the Hell?
I wasn't the only one on the journey to find Dierks. I befriended two girls from Chatham who had been there 30 minutes longer than I had. They told me stories of their previous encounters like seeing Luke Bryan on a golf cart. They also met Justin Bieber outside of a venue even when they were told they had no chance. These were my people. They each had homemade signs but no mitts so their hands and most likely everything else was frozen. I was dressed warmer than them but I was cold too. We still waited.
Right away, we were suspicious of this van. Not because it might have had candy in it, but because it might have had a performer in it.
We watched as people from one of the radio stations came....
Then the news crew came....
The van kept moving around the parking lot and we thought this was a sign of things to come.
Finally, a security guard came over and said Dierks was on the move and to have our cameras ready! The van turned sideways with the passenger side away from us. Dierks and his band apparently got in the van and drove away without us ever getting to see him! The security guard said, "I'm sorry, but that was it." Of course he would be back soon, but we were done waiting. The other girls were so mad they left their signs there (casual littering). I was a little disappointed but you're more likely to meet people when it's warm out. It's just too bad he was right there. Jon Pardi must have been hiding somewhere indoors. I was really hoping to see Cole Swindell too because I met him last year at The Trackside Music Festival and I wanted to get my picture signed. During the show he talked about Trackside a lot, so that was almost as good.
Annette Dawm and Cole Swindell July 2, 2016.
As I mentioned earlier, it takes a long time to upload photos on this site. I just tried to add 25 photos and the site crashed, so I will share my top 5 favourites from the show (fingers crossed).
5. Jon Pardi: I was excited about this because I had a camera that was new to me and I didn't really know how to work it. I was on the 2nd floor so it zoomed really well.
4. Cole Swindell: This was a tough choice because I had other good shots of Cole, but I loved how he used this platform to enter and exit the stage. It reminded me of the bigger shows I've seen, like Carrie Underwood and Prince because they had a lot of trap doors they came out of.
3. Dierks Bentley and his guitar: Since I had to leave early, I was so glad I got to see Dierks play "I Hold On". That is my favourite song of his.
2. Dierks Bentley and Jon Pardi: As I was leaving, Dierks invited Jon out to sing George Strait's, "Amarillo By Morning".
1. Dierks Bentley: I cropped this one but I love the colours and lighting (and his face)!
