Locked and Loaded!

Toby Keith has always been one of my favorite artists; one of the first CD's I ever bought was his Greatest Hits album. I learned every word to every song and could sing them all day long. This came in handy last night because I got the chance to go to his Locked and Loaded tour with my good friend Kara, and it was amazing. (Please excuse my squished cowboy hat in the picture above. It was 103 degrees, so the hat ended up on the ground until we took a picture.)

Toby had two opening acts; newcomer JT Hodges, and Eric Church. I'd never heard of Hodges until I found out he was opening for Toby, so I went on iTunes and bought the only song he had on there, "Hunt You Down." It's a catchy song that I think will help his popularity. However, no one knew it or anything else he sang, so he got a lackluster response from the crowd. The biggest cheer he got was when he said Eric Church was coming up.

Eric received at much better response when he took the stage. He started with an older song that I was unfamiliar with, but a lot of other people seemed to know. I only own one of his albums, but I knew all of the songs from that album. He got the biggest response to his songs "Carolina" and "Smoke a Little Smoke." He was the home town boy from right here in North Carolina, so everyone loved him. He finished his set with "Smoke a Little Smoke."

The anticipation for Toby was unbelievable as we waited for him to take the stage. His performance started with a video clip sponsored by Ford that ended with a bang, literally. He started his set with "Bullets in the Gun" and then sang a lot of his newer songs. He used a lot of video and animation clips as well as plenty of pyrotechnics. My favorite song that he performed was "Should've Been a Cowboy;" the audience was very into that song and everyone knew it. He ended the night with "American Solider" and "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue." Overall his performance was great, and this is definitely a concert worth seeing.

Eric Church

Toby Keith and his big TV screen that was a huge component in his show!