Shania Twain And That Gavin Guy

8/20/2015
I am typing this up on a nice day off after just seeing my first dose of Shania Twain last night Wednesday 19th. This is a two part concert bonanza. Saw Shania last night at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Tonight I'll be seeing her at the Staples Center. I'm quite possibly more excited to see her again tonight than I was last night. A large band, flames, and moving platforms. This show was a very larger than life experience. Whether Shania is being lifted center stage or flying on a bull around the audience, she took her moments to speak with the audience, and she brought a lot of the Vegas magic with her on her world tour. You can read about that in my Dan Goes To Concerts In Las Vegas post. I will say that you can't go see her on tour and expect it to be as good as her Vegas show. It cant' be compared, but her tour is still full of Shania Twain superstar magic. Unfortunately I missed Gavin DeGraw last night, however I will be getting to Staples Center on time to see both performances. I did see him come out to duet with Shania on Party For Two, according to her it is the first time they took this fun tune on tour.


8/21/2015
I've made it through my first back to back concert performance. It was interesting. I saw a lot of things I would not have if I hadn't seen it twice. Makes me wonder if there is always so many extra things that can differ from one performance over the other. For example: apparently a generator blew up nearby the Staples Center at another building and it led to Staples Center experiencing some sort of power surge/power outage which resulted in a very awkward 10 minutes when about 45 seconds into 'That Don't Impress Me Much' where the sound died and the house lights came up. Shania Twain made her way off stage as well as the rest of the band. Then the music kicked back up and Shania was back on stage, only to now have a microphone that's not working. Shania took the opportunity to have some face time with the audience. She pointed out an actual rocket scientist that was brought to her attention in the very front. (Which is a quote in the song.) So once again they re started the song, she came through and they finished off the show. Knowing how complex those systems are it's actually a miracle they recovered as fast as they did.

Aside from the power issues the rest of the show was spot on, there were a number of differences from last night vs. the night before. For example at Honda, as I had mentioned we got Shania flying over the audience on a mechanical bull. She also was raised on a rising platform at the beginning of the first night, that the second night never saw. Everything seemed to be tweaked differently, even the song arrangement. Due to the curfew difference between Orange County and Los Angeles, the Staples show was condensed. Back to back really let me get a feel for the differences in venues. The Staples Center is outrageously better than Honda Center. The seats were like night and day, also the sound quality of the performance was more fine tuned at Staples Center. I'm excited that I'll be seeing The Who at Staples next month as apposed to Honda. Heck based on seats alone. But then there's also the LA traffic and LA homeless that are the price to pay for the nicer venue. I also assume Staples natively has more lasers. There seemed to be a lot more lasers for the second night, and who doesn't like lots of lasers? Crazy People!!! and maybe people who have epileptic seizures.

Once again, I showed up a little later to the show, but I did see the last two Gavin DeGraw songs. He's pretty cool, I can't get much of an assessment from just two songs. But he sounded great. Seems like a good opener for Shania. It was also a good idea to use him for the Party For Two duet. I really enjoyed seeing Shania Twain back to back. This is supposed to be her last tour ever, so I'm glad to say I've seen her three times before she hangs up her boots. Who knows if she'll actually call it quits after this, that's what every artist says but if it truly is the end, I'm glad I got to witness the County superstar in action.

Photos from Orange County Register and LA times.