My daughter and I headed out tonite (actually yesterday by my local time now) to see the Taylor Swift concert in D.C. All I can say is that there are going to be a lot of very tired little girls in the a.m.
While I personally enjoyed the show, the crowd was quite heavily tilted to the female persuasion. Lots of screaming females, young and old. By the morning, I might be able to hear normally again, after the screams that were going off right behind me stop ringing in my ears.
I have a few minor complaints with the facility that the concert was held in (Verizon Center), or should I say the concert configuration for same. First, to this day I'm still not pleased that the best tickets I was able to buy in a pre-sale were up in the rafters. Considering I was buying tickets early, I should have been able to get something in the lower bowl there, but that was impossible. I suppose some other pre-sales buyers were lucky enough to get the better seats, but it was still frustrating given the charge for the tickets. The view from "up there" left me wondering where the artist was for much of the show. The 4th deck at Verizon Center (former MCI arena) is definitely up in the air and well distant from the floor and stage areas.
One of the other complaints regards how the stage was configured. Big, very big, speaker clusters hanging from the corners of the stage to blast the sound from -- and block the view of the upper stage area that was featured in the concert. Bleh. The speaker clusters should have been about 10 - 15 feet further up in the air so the view of the stage wasn't blocked for the people in the not-so-cheap upper level seating but that just wasn't taken into account apparently.
The show itself was quite enjoyable and props must be given to Ms. Swift for being so friendly to her fans in the crowd. She works the crowd like a pro and yet she also took time hugging fans in the crowd and causing a flood of tears from fans that will be swearing that their lives have been changed forever just for the experience. Thankfully the audio configuration for Swift was more pleasing to the ears than was the configuration that was used for her opening act, Kellie Pickler. The audio for Pickler's performance was the typical Verizon Center booming bass overly loud and vocal drowning configuration. Rather than being able to hear and enjoy the singing for her the best you'd get was a bit of her higher notes that could be heard above the musicians.
Oh well, at least that's the last concert I'll catch at Verizon Center for a good while. Thankfully the other shows I have tickets for are at facilities that I much more prefer.
