Stranded in Chaos: Kings of Leon: Mommies Night Out

I have actually seen Kings of Leon.. five times before last night's concert, which was my sixth. Sadly, I only blogged about three of them and you can see those here, here, (that one was my FAVORITE) and here. So when I heard about them going on tour to promote their newest album WALLS, I wanted to go REALLY badly.

Sadly, I am poor. I knew there wasn't any way I could buy tickets.

My friend Jennie wanted to go and we had a collective moment of sad because I'm poor. I had seen Kings of Leon twice before with her, so clearly it was even more sad.

SUDDENLY!

She texted me and said to mark my calendar because we were going! I'm like, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, I'M POOR?!?!?! (I may have even used shouty caps on text). She informed me that someone anonymously paid for my ticket so I could go. She wouldn't tell me who, or give me any hints (she's like a VAULT, I tell you!) so whoever did that:

Thank you. I really can not tell you what that means to me. I would have been really bummed out to miss Kings of Leon coming so near me and I really appreciate that you helped me go. It was a GREAT night with one of my friends.

Sigh. Really, the only bright spot since having an AFE is seeing the good in so many people. I am really grateful that I have so many kind and loving people in my life.

So we went. She drove because I am not supposed to be driving at night and I was surprised at how much I remembered- like I remembered where to park, where the restaurants were, how to get back onto the highway (kind of). It was surprising. I'm trying to push myself to remember because I know it's all in my head, I just have to figure out how to get it out of there when I need it!

Before the concert we went and had dinner across the street and I don't remember eating there before. The local radio station was there to hype up the concert so we put our names in to win prizes, specifically the tickets for the suite box to view the concert. My name actually got called and I had to pick an envelope and by this point there were only 5 envelopes to pick from. I didn't win tickets, instead I won a water bottle. Which is still cool, something I can use, right?

After a messy dinner we walked back across the street to get into our seats. Once we got there we walked the entire circumference of the Xcel Energy Center and could not find the stairs to go up, since we were in the balcony. A very nice employee informed us we had to get our tickets exchanged because they had to rearrange things, so we went to the other side and found the exchange area. Turns out, our seats were UPGRADED and we ended up having really great seats! These would have been significantly more money but we didn't get charged and that was a really cool surprise.

Me and Jennie, right after the opening band (Dawes) played. They were OK, probably not something I'd rush out and get the album but they weren't terrible.

Around 8:30 Kings of Leon took the stage.

Some observations, Caleb looked amazing. As usual. He's my favorite.

Matthew has lost a LOT of weight and his pants were too short.

Nathan looked SO rough and they didn't really close up on him much except for once and I was taken aback at how swollen and kind of awful he looked. Jared.. we have to talk about Jared. He has bleach blond hair and was wearing white skinny jeans and what looked like heeled boots. I just.. his wife must hate him because who lets that kind of thing happen? It needs to be stopped. Some kind of intervention needs to happen because that look isn't good on anyone.

They played a few songs off their latest album, WALLS, but obviously the favorites were from all of the previous albums. I'm not loving the WALLS album but there are a couple of favorites on there.

One of my favorite things about KOL is that they are really terrific live. Easily one of the best live bands I have ever seen. They play their instruments, Caleb's voice has a perfect gravel which, by the end of their 2.5 hour set, was sounding hoarse.

Caleb did mention at one point that they only have a few shows left of this tour and you could tell they were tired, but they played all of the favorites. They played just about 2.5 hours, which is so great because you know you will get your money's worth at a KOL concert.

Their stage set up changed a few times, the screen artwork was strange but interesting, and they all interacted with each other, which they kind of lost on their last tour.

Overall? Amazing. I definitely did not want it to end. I decided that one of my bucket list items is to get VIP meet and greet tickets on one of their tours. I know I'd maybe have to sell a kidney but it would be worth it. Their albums are the soundtrack to so much of my life.

I'm going to leave you with one of the songs that make me cry every time I hear it. This wasn't from the show I saw, but instead from 2014 Lollapalooza.

"Jesus don't love me. No one ever carried my load. I'm too young to feel this old."