I was so excited. Saturday rolled around, and we got all packed up to go, and dropped Jessica off at my parents house so they could watch her without having to stay up way too late themselves. Then we headed out to Provo to get our seats. Parking was a pain, though that was expected, then we had a nice walk to the stadium. Unfortunately there was a bit of a hassle at the gates. No food or drink allowed in, including bottled water. So we did have to dump out our 2 bottles full of nice clean water, though there were places we supposedly could refill them once we got inside. We had brought food because I don't tend to last very well going more than a few hours without eating something, and I have the intolerance to sugars/refined flours, making me basically allergic to anything they would sell in the stadium. It's not a deadly thing or a medical emergency, but it would have made me extremely uncomfortable. I also have to eat if I'm going to take my excedrin for when I get headaches, and I was kinda expecting it with the large amounts of noise (and I was right). So we got up to the gate and they started telling me to throw away the food I had brought. Luckily, once I explained the food allergy thing, they decided that it was safe to let me in with it. Phew. Got through that. Then we went up to find our seats, which were in the north end-zone bleachers (stage was in the south end-zone), way up at the top. Well, okay, top section, but they were low enough that by the time the show started, the sun had dipped below the bleachers.
After finding our seats, I ran back down to go to the bathroom, and fill the waterbottles. Wow. You think bathroom lines are long? You should have seen the line for the filling of the bottles. It was crazy! Figuring it was more important to go to the bathroom than to have water the rest of the evening, I got into that line first. Yeah... after how long it took me, I realized that the water line wasn't going to happen, so I refilled my water bottle at the sink. Unfortunately, the water didn't look very clean, so I only had a few sips the whole night, though that was better than nothing.
So I went all the way back up to take my seat, with probably about 10 minutes to spare. Yay! Not tons of waiting! Finally the show started. I don't even know how to go about describing it. There were sky divers, and dancers, and jets, and music, and... and... and... *brain overload*. Pictures might help me think straight. None of the pictures are very good, but they show our view.
So, first the were the skydivers. This is the 4th one. There were red, white, and blue divers, and then this was wore all 3 colors and carried a flag.
This diver had a little mishap upon landing. There is a blue fence that you can see around mid-field if you look closely at the picture. He hit it as he was coming in for his landing. He seemed to be okay, though he may have also hit one of the spectators, there was someone lying on the ground. What I found interesting, and kind of funny, is that the military people there started rushing out as he crash-landed, but they didn't even spare him a second glance. Their main focus was to get the flag off the ground. Now I do understand that they did have other people there to help with any injuries, and that was supposed to be their focus, but I still found it a little funny. Then there was the pledge, and the national anthem.
I thought the way they did the anthem was neat. When David Archuleta (performing as well) was 12, he sang the national anthem at Stadium of Fire, so they started off with a recording of him. Then as people had their eyes fixed on the screens, he came onstage, and then it cut to a live performance of it, with the now 19-years old David. I thought it was cool, but I was in a very happy/giddy state of mind, so I don't know if I can be fully trusted. ;) Even better was the timing. On the last note of the national anthem, the jets from Hill AFB flew over. I always think thats cool.
These are the dancers in their main number they did.
After the dancing, they did a "talent-search" competition. There were 3 finalists that had been chosen prior to the actual event. The crowd at the Stadium of Fire was to pick the winner. There were 2 bands, and 1 soloists. The bands were country, and some other genre, that I couldn't quite pick out. It was music, and for the most part they were talented, but I didn't care for them much because the lead singer had a tendency to screech, and when she started singing higher, she wasn't quite hitting the notes. The soloist was an 11 year old girl who I thought was very good, and even more so because she was only 11. I thought the country band was good, they were talented, but I kinda felt "meh" toward them. So, we were supposed to be texting our votes in, but they guy explaining it was having struggles. There was to be a 2 minute window for us to vote, and he was going to tell us when to send it in. Yeah, the only things he said were not to send it in yet, and then he started going around to the people seated on the field asking if they had texted in yet. So later in the show, when he came up and said that we broke the system they had, I had to laugh, because I'm pretty sure it was his lousy instructions that broke it. So they did the voting "the old-fashioned way". They had a decimeter up there, and had people cheer for who they wanted, and whoever was loudest, won. It was the country band. I was disappointed, but not overly so.
After the talent search performers, David Archuleta came on stage and performed his music. He did about 4-5 songs, and they were really good. I liked his voice the few times I watched American Idol, and he didn't disappoint. I also found that I did know one of his songs (Crush). I have heard it on the radio, I've just never heard the DJs say whose it was. However, what I was most impressed by, was the amount of running around/dancing he did while singing. Having been somewhat formally trained in singing, I know that singing in and of itself is tiring, especially under stage lights. Add in running and dancing, and it was amazing that I couldn't hear it in his voice while he was singing.
As I said, the pictures aren't very good, but these are all 3 of Brad Paisley. Oh well on the quality.
So, Brad Paisley. It was basically a mini-concert. He probably performed for about 30-45 minutes, which isn't very long if you're just going to a concert, but as a part of a larger program?... yeah, that's a fair amount. But I had so much fun singing along and dancing. Then, his last song, "Water" he actually ended by jumping into a swimming pool that was part of the stage. They way they had been using the screens it just looked like an image of water, until he jumped "behind" the screen (in the water), and then started swimming off stage. It was way cool.
After Brad Paisley came the main event! The fireworks! No pictures of that, sorry. But the Stadium of Fire fireworks are famous (and actually may be one of the biggest in the nation to hear the MC tell it) and everyone around the valley tries to watch them from wherever they are. You'll see blankets spread in yards and parking lots, and even on roofs to try to watch THE fireworks. It is so much cooler in the stadium, where you can hear the music along with them.
Then it was over, and we headed back to the car. And then we waited in the parking lot for a good 20-30 minutes. However, once we got out of the parking lot, the traffic wasn't too bad, and we made good time back to my parents to pick Jessica up, and then home to put all 3 of us to bed.
Very good anniversary present in my opinion.
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