Calgary Stampede | Famous Fridays | VIP

FAB it Up with Johnny Reid

July 14, 2012

Last night another great concert and another great seat for the Virgin Mobile Concert:

Johnny Reid

This was the last stop for the multi CCMA winner for his ‘Fire It Up’ tour.

Now I’ll be quite honest, I had never heard of JR before and after seeing his concert, I have no idea why!

Being from a smaller city and spending many summers on our family farm, I am the exact fan base JR has developed…

Townies!

People who listen to his music while gettin gussied up for the local town fair!

His music about love and life is a celebration and nothing spoke better to that then his song, ‘Dancing Shoes’

Within 10 seconds of the song starting the crowd of 15,000 people, who had driven in from every small town in the country, were on their feet.

Then like a Sunday morning televangelist, JR  jumped off stage and ran around the entire stadium healing people from any of their ‘stampede blues!’

Now imagine for a second that Phil Collins and Rod Stewart had a baby. Give him a few gospel back up singers and jazzy country licks… This boy was looking to start a movement!

The best part of the whole Johnny Reid experience was meeting him prior to the concert and then seeing a 360 transformation on stage.

Now backstage he was hidden from view and myself and a few others were ushered around a corner 1 by 1 and placed into a photo booth to meet him. The setting was very cold; no autographs and no personal cameras were to be used. JR was in black leather and stood there very serious.

But that didn’t stop me from having fun, he didn’t know what hit him!

Picture Coming

Then once on stage, he was dressed in red denim jeans and a white blazer.

His drummer made the comment:

“He looks like Colonel Sanders.”

And JRs response:

“That’s cause I’m finger lickin good!”

This show had everything!

Fried chicken, the healing touch and one of the most unexpected guest singers ever to take the stage… Theo Fleury.

Yes, the former hockey player turned karaoke singer took the stage for one solo song and it was as awful as you could have expected. I have no idea how or why it happened but the crowd was none to happy!

When JR return it was like some one had pinched us awake from a bad dream and then soothed us by singing an amazing rendition of ‘Today I’m Gonna Try and Change the World’.

It was a rollercoaster of a concert and I liked it!

Thanks for bringing me back to my country bumpkin roots!

Mr. Fab it up



Looking forward to reading your comments!