It was fun to watch my daughter’s reactions to her first arena concert… she was amazed at all of the people, impressed with our good seats, excited to see the performances, and thoroughly amused by the dancing pop tart. And she twirled her glow stick like a pro, coming very close to the people in front of us but never actually whacking them.

Each Idol performed 3 songs except for David A. who sang 4, and David C. who sang 5. Chikezie opened the show with a bang– he was really quite good! Next was Ramiele, who was very sparkly and wore the highest heeled boots I’ve ever seen in my life. Michael Johns was just exactly as he appeared on TV… he sang “Dream On” and joked that it was the song that got him kicked off the show.

Kristy Lee was surprisingly good! I don’t care for country music, and I wasn’t a big fan of hers on the show, but in person she has a really really good voice. When she started to sing “God Bless the USA”, the arena was so quiet you could hear a pin drop… until she got to the first chorus and people got loud again. What a moment!

Carly belted out her songs, no surprise there, and Brooke was very good in person. After those two, the bottom 6 came out for a group song, then we had an intermission. Jason kicked off the second half of the show and he was as cheerful as ever… even though he forgot the words to 2 of his songs. One of them he sang words in a different order and the other song was comprised of mostly humming. Syesha was up next and (though I didn’t care for her song choices) did a fantastic job… that girl can sure sing!

Then we got to David Archuleta. I thought my eardrums were going to burst with the high-pitched screams and squeals of a thousand pre-teen girls! I had grown tired of him on the show, and fully anticipated disliking his portion of the concert but he was fantastic! After hearing him live, I can see why so many people think he’s good… he is.

And then… oh.my.gosh… it was time for David Cook and the crowd just went WILD. Loud, loud, loud, and of course we were hollering too. His mom & brother were in the audience there by the stage, and he said this was the first time they had seen him in concert. He dedicated a song to his brother, and the big screen showed Andrew with tears streaming down his face– a pretty touching scene in the middle of all the excitement. My opinion still stands: David Cook totally rocks. The grand finale was “Don’t Stop the Music” by all 10, and it was definitely a great way to end the show.

When we were leaving, we stumbled upon a fenced area that the guards were creating and I asked them what it was for… they said it was the area that the Idols would be coming to after the show! We stood there, front & center, waiting to meet them and wishing we had brought something for them to autograph and a camera. The crowd behind us kept getting bigger and we started getting mashed against the rail. I was getting fussy because I was tired. (I’m not as young as I used to be, you know) When a security lady came out and announced that it would be an hour and a half before they were coming out, we agreed that it wasn’t worth the wait and left the scene.

Oh! I made these t-shirts for us to wear… bet you can tell which one is mine: