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My plans were to hit Gibson Grille (attached to the National) first, eat dinner in a nice setting, then use the early entrance line they have for the concerts. Well, not quite. I get there at 5:30 and there is already a decent line waiting - outside (having never been there before I had assumed the entrance was inside. I assumed wrong :-D). Plans change to get food to go then get in said line as soon as possible. Never thought I'd ever dine alfresco on the sidewalk of 7th Street, but there you have it.
Saw my friend Lori (and her friend, who's name I never picked up.) so I actually had someone to hang out with. Plus we talked to quite a few of the people waiting in line. Not sure why, as I knew David had a very diverse fandom, but I was a bit amazed at the huge age difference of the people waiting. I was expecting to be amongst the oldest there, and while I perhaps was, there were a LOT more of us than I thought there would be. Anyway, time flew by fairly quickly and before I knew it we were being let inside.
Concert was GA so we headed for the stage. We were somewhere around 3-4 rows in; pretty much front of the stage. Not bad at all. Again, we struck up conversations with those around us. Cookie fans rule!

I'm going to jump to my thoughts about David first. From all the youtubes I'd seen from his shows plus comments from people on some of the msg boards I was expecting great things and he didn't disappoint. Great music, tight band, wonderful stage presence. (There is really no comparing this concert to the last one I went to - Jimmy Buffett - different music, different venue, different vibe. But the one thing I preferred about this show is that with it being a smaller, indoor setting with a fantastic sound system, was that it was much easier for me to hear all the between song chatter. And there is just something about an intimate setting). One of the things that made me "fall in love" with David on American Idol was how humble and down to earth he always seemed. And how great of a personality he possessed. How Simon could say he lacked charm, I'll never understand. But back to last night, all those things still hold true for David. He definitely knows how to work a crowd and fame hasn't seemed to change him a bit.
His set list (about an hour and 15 min?) was mostly songs from his current album. We also got a "Hot For Teacher" cover, plus "We're Only Honest When We're Sleeping"" (pre-Idol). Highlights for me were "Lie", and a wonderful acoustic version of "Life on the Moon". I was a tad disappointed that he didn't do "Avalanche" (though I really didn't expect him to) or "Permanent". Our local paper today lamented on the fact that he didn't do any of the songs that he performed on American Idol. Personally I'm glad he didn't. Not that I don't think I would have enjoyed them. But to me, it's kind of like when he performed "The World I Know", and then got chastised by Simon for not doing one of the songs he had already done previously. David's response to him was something along the lines of thinking it was more important *for him* to do something he hadn't done; to evolve with his music rather than replay. That's kind of how I felt last night. Though AI definitely introduced him to an audience that might never have heard of him otherwise and you can tell that he definitely appreciates what the show did for him; the show definitely doesn't define him and his music.

You also wouldn't know it from Ruggieri's review, but David had an opening act, Ryan Star. Whereas I went in expecting great things from David, I really didn't have high hopes for liking Ryan. Nothing against the guy at all; as a matter of fact I had barely ever heard of him and had never heard any of his music. It just usually takes me awhile to warm up to music I've never heard before. Usually but not last night. Ryan was fantastic! From his first song I really liked his voice and his music style (very similar to David's). He was also entertaining to listen to, and much like David, comes off as extremely humble and down to earth (though apparently he has a penchant for using the f-bomb & getting himself kicked out of local movie theaters <grin>). The guy just really, really impressed me. (ok, and he was hawt too!). He had cd's for sale so after the show my friends and I got copies and headed over to meet Ryan, who was doing autographs in a corner in the lobby. You could tell from the conversations that he was having with the fans that his humbleness isn't an act and that he is just a genuine sweetheart. When it was my turn to get my cd signed he took quite a while to chat with me and came across as being genuinely interested in what I had to say. I hope big things come for Ryan; he definitely deserves it.
I was also able to snag a photo and talk with Ryan's base player for a bit. He seemed a bit goofy and I mean that in the nicest way possible - I love goofy guys :-)

We then went and got in line to try and meet David but that wasn't meant to be as his throat was still bothering him & he thought that standing out in the cool air probably wasn't the smartest thing for him to do. Understandable. I did get a very brief glimpse of him as he got onto the tour bus; whoo hoo. For all I know he may have ended coming back out for a bit. They were locking the garage where a bunch of us were still parked so we had to leave and go rescue our cars. I came out on 8th St and had to circle back onto 7th to get to the highway and there were still people waiting out there when I drove by.
Anyway, a totally terrific night out at the National. I look forward to seeing both Cookie and Ryan again in concert some time

And my photos from last night. Hopefully they uploaded ok (last time I tried uploading photos from an indoor "venue" the photos came out looking horrible; though they looked ok from the originals). Also my laptop is a pain and you often can't tell the quality of photos that are online. So I have no idea what you all might see. I do know that the photos are a bit on the grainy side since flash wasn't allowed so I tried to make up for that using a ISO3200 setting
http://public.fotki.com/SuZamboni/david-cook-and-ryan/