This has been "The Summer of My Dreams" as far as concerts go. Up to this point.... Last night I had the privilege to experience one of my favorite all time singer/songwriters in concert, Lori McKenna. I did so in the company of my VERY favorite singer/songwriter Nancy Hanson. She and husband Dave had also come to this last Bluebird concert of the season and joined me and daughter Karen for the evening. Good thing, because something's come up that will prevent me from attending Nancy's Homestead concert for the first time in many years. Being in her company last night will have to suffice! Lori appeared with 2 of Nashvilles finest songwriters Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin. It was an even better attended concert than the one 2 weeks ago with Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters and Marshall Chapman. In fact a new attendance record was set with over 720 people on hand. The 2 guys have been noted Nashville writers for many years and have written for all the big country stars. Most of their songs were unfamiliar to me because I choose to ignore the radio as much as possible. I did recognize Martina McBride's hit Love's the Only House when Tom sang it early in the performance and Allen's He Walked On Water, recorded by Randy Travis. Between those and The House That Built Me I was pretty much lost by the songs the guys sang. I really enjoyed their stuff and wasn't at all upset to not be familiar with it. Plenty of others were, including Karen who knew most of them and even sang along. The House That Built Me was co-written by both of the guys and was in fact conceived the last time they were at Sundance several years ago. I was also surprised to learn that Allen had written Bonnie Raitt's I Can't Make You Love Me. That's one I'm definitely familiar with! Lori commented on how she knew going into this that the guy's stuff would get much recognition from the audience while she would be doing stuff that was largely unfamiliar. However, some of the audience members let her know they'd come to hear her! I would number myself among them even though I didn't make it publicly known, Lori's stuff was quite familiar to me. There were 2 new songs she sang, but the rest I knew. As happened 2 weeks ago, the audience demanded an encore and the performers didn't disappoint. They came back and Lori did a Tom Petty cover. Another song unfamiliar to me, but very nice! Nancy asked afterward if the concert met my expectations. The answer to that question is a little clearer to me today than it was last night. I was slightly disappointed by Lori's set list. I was hoping to hear The Luxury of Knowing, If He Tried and Lorraine from the new album and Stealing Kisses from Bitter Town.. All were missing. On the other hand she did sing one of my favorites from the new album, Sweet Disposition and gave a story about it that was pretty cool. She told how she performed it shortly after writing it and a friend of her deceased mother's came up and told how her mother had described her as having a "sweet disposition" in her high school year book.Interesting "coincidence"! Other than the set list, the rest of the concert exceeded my expectations, so I guess if you balance it out, I would have to say the concert did exceed my expectations! The sound last night was superb. Lori never sounded better. It seemed 2 weeks ago when Matraca Berg got vocally loud the sound system got a bit distorted. Nothing of the kind happened last night and I don't think Lori's volume was any less than Matraca's! It was a sweet experience and I did manage to wrangle an autograph from Lori who was very swamped by admirers afterwards. There was a songwriters camp at Sundance all this past week and the participants were all over Lori. One even had her sign a guitar! All in all, a most satisfying night! I'll be most interested to see what happens with this series next year.
