The Fair and Darius Rucker

Last Saturday night Jennifer and I went to the Colorado State Fair. Specifically we went to the fair because we had tickets to the Darius Rucker concert, but we went a couple of ours early because we wanted to check out the booths at the fair and look around.

I asked Jennifer to drive. She asked why. I said because I hate crowds and they make me uncomfortable. This led to a good conversation on my relationships to crowds of people. Do I have concerns about an anxiety disorder related to crowds? No. Do I like being in big groups of people with lots of strangers around everywhere? No I don't. Crowds drain me of my energy and put me a little on edge.

We found a nice little curb to park on and paid NOTHING. We were pretty stoked about that. We walked for several blocks to the entrance of the fairgrounds. It was a perfect evening for a walk. Then we went into the fairgrounds.

What I enjoy about fairs is walking past the booths and smelling all the smells and hearing all the sounds. Now, I could not enjoy this over a long period of time. But over a short period of time, the constant change in smells and the constant change in the crowds around us intrigued me. It made me think about and enjoy the diversity of tastes, perfumes, and people as we wandered around.

We made a few purchases, and got a little bit to eat, and then we went into the Darius Rucker concert. Here are a few of my quick hits of thoughts about the evening:

• Overall the concert was good. Well performed.



• I enjoyed Rucker's choices of songs to sing that were not songs he had recorded with either Hootie and the Blowfish, or on one of his other albums. These songs included: God Love Her (Toby Keith), You Don't Even Call Me By My Name (David Allen Coe), Family Tradition (Hank Williams Jr.) and In Pictures (Jamie Johnson). This was a good mix of old and new in my opinion. And he handled doing covers of others with humility and grace, including saying "this was the section of songs I wish I had wrote". I believe Family Tradition to be the ultimate blue-collar anthem, and this was demonstrated by the amount of men that stood up ONLY at this point in the concert.His use of these songs, as opposed to some country songwith a little more of a pop music sound adds to a sense that he is authentically a fan of country and singing country.



• Its amazing what happens when you ad a little fiddle and a little twang to a Hootie and the Blowfish song.






• Rucker's body movement while singing is unique. While he can authentically pull of a country music performance in every other way, his mannerisms while singing seem to always have an R&B/Blues effect. Adds to a sense of authenticity to his craft, but at times can be a little distracting to the music.



• The first encore Rucker sang a song a cappella. Man does that dude have a voice.



• By far the best performance of the night (besides the cover material) was the drinking and dialing song. Funny.



• He closed, strangely enough, with a country version of Prince's Purple Rain. The man can move across genres at light speed



• One of the most fun things in listening to Darius Rucker is that his baritone voice gives most altos, tenors, and basses a sense that they can sing the music with him and be on key. Yet, few have the tone depth of Darius Rucker.