Sun Nov 19, 2006 9:34 pm

This weekend was amazing - 2 Miranda shows, La Crosse and Dekalb. Since each show is unique unto itself, I'll so separate reviews!

So, I got to La Crosse about 5:15 and doors didn't open until 6:30. I had the VIP ticket from Dierks' fan club, so I got in the door before most. Since it's general admission, I knew leaving for the meet and greet with Ran would be a problem. I made friends with a couple people standing near me and they agreed to hold my spot. The meet and greet started at 6:50 and was done long before Randy Rogers started. I met up with Jessica (FaithandMirandafan) in the meet and greet line. Jessica had Ran's birthday card and it looked awesome!! We kept letting people go in front of us, so we could take a coulple minutes to present the card to Ran.

Jessica gave the card to Ran and she absolutely loved it!! She said it was awesome. Jessica has the pictures when she presented the card. Jessica and I got a pic together with Ran too. I chatted with Ran briefly and here's the result:

Got my spot back and The Randy Rogers Band started promptly at 7:30. They're really good - I'll have to pick up their cd. The fiddle player is insane. I've never seen a fiddle player jump around like he does.

Anyway, on to the highlight of the evening - Ran's performance. She did 10 songs in all and looked and sounded incredible. The crowd was totally into it - singing along to almost every song. Not too many (besides me) knew the lyrics to Gunpowder and Lead. When she sang Bring Me Down, people all around me were singing all the lyrics really loudly. I love seeing and hearing the crowd getting into Ran's music. She sang 2 new songs - Gunpowder & Lead and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Even for Crazy Ex, the crowd was totally into it. During Crazy-Ex Ran was out in the center part of the stage, kinda in the crowd (but still on the stage) and during the lyric "I'm a Crazy Ex Girlfriend" she looked right at me! One of the Dierks fans who helped save my spot even gave me a high five at that point! Kerosene totally rocked and the crowd was REALLY into it. The band was rocking and the entire set was incredible.

After the set, I got Aden's attention and got the set list (made people around me jealous) and got Ran to sign it the next night. All the band members are totally cool and great guys.

Then along came Dierks. I'll keep this part short, since this is already really long. Dierks puts on a great show. He's totally high energy and interacts with the crowd really well. His show was excellent too. After the show, I had a meet and greet with Dierks:

One thing Dierks does in his meet and greets is has everybody hang around after he signs. He visits with people, answers questions and just "keeps it real". One really interesting thing he said is he brings people out on tour with him that he likes to listen to. The other members of Dierks fan club were very complimentary of Ran - they said how much they loved her show. Dierks is a very down to earth guy and extremely nice too.

I didn't get out of the arena until almost midnight, as we were having fun visiting with Dierks. I needed to get to Dekalb for the show the next night, but stopped in Madison at 2 am (couldn't drive any longer).

The adventure continues in the next review (Dekalb)...

So yeah, Craig pretty much said everything worth saying...lol Oh well!! Ran rocked and I LOVE HER!! I'm a little sad that I didn't get to talk to Aden...You all know how much I love him! lol Anyway, I didn't get any pics of me giving Ran the card...I'm a little sad but it's okay! She loved it and said that she would read it later on when she had time!!! I'll get some pictures up...Craig's are far better than mine because I was further away from the stage but it's all good!! (And I'll get you the one of both of us with Ran, Craig!) GREAT SHOW! And Dierks is amazing...lol RRB is pretty darn good too!! WOW! lol