I'm happy to say I am feeling quite a bit better this morning than I was yesterday morning. It's amazing what full night's sleep can do for you. I remember in my younger years driving home from a concert in Detroit and turning in at 1 AM then getting up for work wasn't such a big deal. These days, it absolutely is. I'm just not built for this sort of thing anymore.
Honestly though, if I only have to do it once per year, I can probably manage. On top of that, if it happens in the summer when I have a little more of a buffer for getting to work, even better.
I'm not going to beat around the bush this week. It's #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze, and since I recently attended a concert and I have some good photos, it's pretty obvious what my theme is going to be this week.
This actually wasn't the first time we had seen Drake White. We saw him a couple of years ago at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville Tennessee. It was a great performance, but the problem is, they only have time to sing maybe three songs, so you don't really get a full show if one of your favorite artists is on the slate.
When we saw Drake White was going to be in the state, we figured we should try to find tickets. Just one problem. The venue was St. Andrews Hall in Detroit which is one of the few venues I haven't been to for a concert. I knew it was mostly general admission with standing room only. As someone nearing their 50's, my wife and I had no desire to stand for four hours!
That's when our friends let us know that you could pay for a balcony upgrade and in the balcony there are actual seats you can sit in. They are still first come first serve, but it at least gives you a chance!
There were six of us in the group that went to the show, we met for dinner at a place across the street, and then we hung out in the parking lot drinking a beer/seltzer or two while we waited for the doors to open. This cool motor coach was sitting in the parking lot and we were pretty sure it belonged to the opening act, because there was a much nicer one right across the street that was likely Drake White's.
After we got through security, they shuffled us to this dark room in the basement where they had "happy hour". There was a bar where you could buy drinks and just hang out until they allowed us all to go back upstairs. Apparently this is the way they handle crowd control and keep people from lining up all the way down the street.
We stood around here for about an hour before they finally let us go up to our seats.
St. Andrews Hall is a pretty small venue only holding about 1000 people. I don't think there were even that many in there for the concert. It wasn't sold out and when @mrsbozz asked me to take a guess how many were in there I figured about 800 or so.
The other cool thing about getting balcony seats is they have a separate bar and restrooms for the handful of folks that have tickets up there. If I had to guess they maybe allow only 100 or less people up in the balcony area.
That's the balcony bar area in the photos above. They had a really great selection of whiskey and other assorted drinks. I got a locally distilled rye and it was really really good! It was branded as St. Andrews, but I don't know who actually distills it.
St. Andrew's Hall has this interesting scheme where they upcharge you for everything. You can pay a ton extra and get VIP access, or you can pay a little extra and get "fast pass" that lets you into the venue quicker. As I said before, we paid extra for the balcony seating (well worth it), but you can then pay even more to get the "special" seats you see above at the end of the balcony. There are a fair number of little perks like that you can pay for if you have the money to afford it.
The show started at 8 PM with an artist called Justin Jeansonne. They were very old school country with a slide guitar and a guy playing harmonica. In fact, this guy was so committed to the harmonica he had a bandolero across his chest that was filled with different harmonicas like a Rambo wears bullets for an M60 machine gun.
You can see the harmonica player to the left in the photo above.
Drake White took the stage around 9 PM and played for a solid two hours until just about 11 PM. It was a great show and the small venue made it even more intimate. Drake suffered a hemorrhagic stroke back during Covid and he has been slowly recovering since then. It's honestly amazing he is still able to perform today and many of his songs reflect the struggle he went through on the road to recovery.
I'm not going to give you a bunch of commentary on the songs, I'm just going to share them now.
Drake White has a really soulful voice that is what really appeals to me. My wife loves it was well.
It was a dang good show and well worth the lost sleep. It was also nice to tick St. Andrews off my list of concert venues in the state of Michigan, though it would take somebody really special for me to probably go back there again.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
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