Fun With Brooke and Michael

Saturday night, Mel and I (along with our super-cool friend Kirsten) went to see one of my favorite performers in concert -- Brooke White. She is touring with fellow former American Idol finalist Michael Johns, and opening for them is a really cool local artist named Benton Paul.



The concert was at a really small venue -- the Murray Theater. As we waited in line out front for the doors to open, we were literally standing right next to the tour bus. Before long, Brooke started getting on and off the bus quite often, chatting with friends and family who had come to see her show. That was pretty cool.

Michael Johns rocked the house -- he likes to play very loud, and our ears were numb by the time he finished his set. But he was in great voice, and we really enjoyed his new music. Knowing he writes his own stuff makes it even better.




Of course, speaking of an awesome singer-songwriter, Brooke was amazing. I really love her new album -- and I love her old album, and everything she did on Idol. I just really relate to her voice. She started off with "You're So Vain," which was one of my favorites she did on Idol.

She had Michael come back out and they performed their duet, "Life Is Okay," which is an awesome song. They have a great chemistry and sound so good together.



After the show, all 3 artists stayed around to spend a few minutes with everyone who wanted to get an autograph or photos. Even when the rude theater management started turning off the lights, they kept right on signing and talking. Brooke was so sweet and thanked us profusely for coming to see her.



Michael is so cool and fun to talk to. Mel and I had already spent several minutes talking to him last year after the American Idol Tour came to Salt Lake. (Mel has a crush.) He's just the most laid-back, easy going guy. We talked about being from Georgia, Chick-Fil-A (he said, "I have 12 nuggets waiting for me on the bus!"), and lots of other stuff. Very cool guy.



For anyone interested, here are a couple of videos. I would like to have posted more, but they take forever, and I just don't have the patience.

Well, I tried for over an hour to post one more video, with no luck. So I will just have to describe it. A few seconds after I stopped recording the above video, we got a BIG surprise. . .

. . . out of nowhere came David Archuleta. Yes, mom, that's right, David came out and the place went into pandemonium. I nearly went deaf, which was amazing given the relatively small number of people in the place.

Anyway, there was David, singing "Let It Be" with Brooke and Michael, and though Brooke had already said that would be the last song, they decided to sing one more since everyone was having such a good time. They did "Proud Mary," and then left the stage.

Brooke came out for one more encore and sang her most recent single, "Radio Radio," which was, of course, awesome. The whole concert was just wonderful. We had so much fun!