thanks sodascouts...felt like I was there with you and the "crazy guy"

you rock,
Tiffanny Twisted
Quote Originally Posted by sodascouts View Post
Man, I just spent an hour writing a review for this and lost it when I tried to copy and paste, BLAST IT! But hopefully this one will be just as good.

So, as I've said elsewhere, I just heard about this show at the last minute through a friend who is part of the Nashville music scene. It was "invitation only" but all I had to do was submit my photo and info to the casting agent in charge of filling out the audience, and I was able to get an invite. (Obviously, they weren't too picky.)

Sadly, many of the people "invited" by the casting agency were there only in the hopes of getting on TV. Those folks didn't even know who was playing! They had been invited by the casting agency many times before and had attended many tapings of various artists - apparently they were good at looking excited. They seemed to find it quaint that I was actually excited to be there for real, which honestly brought me down a bit. The Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham Soundstage tapings I attended were not "cast." They were filled with fans who were hardcore enough to wait outside all day in order to be part of the limited number allowed in. You didn't have to submit a freaking photo and you can bet your a$$ nobody at those Soundstages was faking excitement.... but oh well. I digress.

Another aspect of this was that we were "placed" as opposed to first come, first serve. I wound up in the balcony straight behind Joe. Yes, we were behind him! This set up was unusual. The balcony was above the back of the stage! We peered down upon Joe and his band from the back. While I spent most of the night looking at the back of Joe's head or dodging the flailing arms of the guy hamming it up near me (he was SURE he would be featured in every shot because we were directly behind Joe - I'm like "Dude, the camera is not going to close up on US, we are going to be indistinguishable blurs behind Joe in wide shots"), I looked on the bright side: I'd never get this perspective at any other show!

Now, those of you who are familiar with CMT Crossroads know that its format is that a country artist teams with an artist of another genre (usually rock) and they perform on each others' songs. For instance, Lindsey Buckingham paired with Little Big Town a few years ago; they sang with him on hits like "Go Your Own Way" and he played with them on their hit "Bones." The rock artist is usually an idol / big influence of the country artist they perform with.

That's not the way this one went, however. Instead of one country artist, there were several, and only Joe's songs were performed. It was one song per artist - the country artist would come out, sing a song with Joe, then retire. In fact, although this was marketed under the moniker Crossroads, it would be more appropriate to refer to it as Joe Walsh and Friends. Plus, not all of the country artists seemed to be as familiar with Joe's music as one would expect...

The guest stars were supposed to include Kenny Chesney, but he wasn't there. My friend thinks his song with Joe will be recorded at another time and edited in, since he's still being advertised as a guest by CMT. I did get to see Brad Paisley, Sara Evans, Luke Bryan, Hunter Hayes, and Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. The only one I knew was Brad Paisley from his hilarious hit "Online" as well as his performance of "Camouflage" with Joe at the CMAs and his song "Love Her Like She's Leaving" which has Don Henley on backing vocals. Of course, I recognized Gibbons from ZZ Top with that iconic beard, but I couldn't have told you his name before the announcement. He's not exactly a country star - probably another reason why this Crossroads is really Joe Walsh and Friends.

Honestly, it was apparent that this show was ill-rehearsed. As I alluded to before, the guest stars did not know the lyrics to the songs as well as they should have, and kept messing up - every song had to be performed at least twice, with the exception of Brad Paisley's. Paisley seemed to truly idolize Joe. The others... not so much. (To be fair to Sara Evans, the reason her song had to be redone was musician error, and as for Billy Gibbons - he was there as Joe's buddy.) There was a teleprompter, but during one of the songs the teleprompter messed up the lyrics, and the result was disastrous.

Joe told a few jokes in between songs but didn't say that much since we were on a tight schedule time-wise.

He opened with "Analog Man" which he performed without a guest star, and said that was just to loosen his throat. I got the impression that it wouldn't be aired, but you'd think with his new album coming out he'd want to do at least one new song. Oh well.

Overall, the typical songs were performed - "Rocky Mountain Way," "Life's Been Good," "In the City," "Life in the Fast Lane," etc. However, there was one special treat which blew my mind....

Joe did Best of My Love! He did it as a duet with Sara Evans, and it was terrific. The lyrics work well as a duet, although I'd never thought of it that way before. They'd turn to each other as they sang "Oh, sweet darlin' - you get the best of my love." Joe's voice may not be quite as suited for this song as Don's, but the way he sang it with Sara Evans was very cool. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I'm going to look into her catalog and see if she's got some other songs I like.

The song had to be redone three times because the band didn't drop out on that last line where they slow down and sing "The best... of... my... love" and couldn't the nail the change in rhythm of the "oh, oh, oh, ohs" that occurs about three-quarters through the song. Sara Evans was having a hard time with that, too. From my vantage point, I got to see the glare Joe gave the band - especially the drummer - after the first mess up. He turned around and hissed, "We repeat it THREE times and then it's just us singing THE. BEST. OF. MY. LOVE!" Well, I was glad I wasn't on the receiving end of that! They just gave up on changing the "oh's" and did them the same way every time.

If you're curious about the teleprompter mistakes - they happened during "Life in the Fast Lane" with Billy Gibbons. First off, nowhere in the teleprompter lyrics did the line "Everything, all the time" occur. It was just "Surely make you lose your mind" again and again. Well, that's annoying but it didn't make the song screech to a halt. The real catastrophe came with the lyrics on the teleprompter did not contain the entire last chorus: "And it was life in the fast lane / Surely make you lose your mind / Life in the fast lane / Life in the fast lane / Everything, all the time / Life in the fast lane" - it just went directly to the repetition of the line "Life in the Fast Lane." Joe was trying to help Gibbons remember to repeat the chorus and get everything together without the teleprompter. They had to redo that sucker FOUR TIMES! The good news is that the song is so awesome that we were all rockin' out to it even after hearing it so many times (it got the biggest response of the night), and Joe kept his cool for the most part, but I bet it wasn't easy.

Speaking of keeping one's cool, apparently the air conditioning was broken, because the venue named "The Factory" was as hot as a real one. I was feeling kind of dizzy as the show progressed, and wondered vaguely if the venue would be liable if I passed out and toppled over the balcony railing onto Joe's drummer. Down on the stage, there was a woman whose job was to come over and dab the sweat from Joe's face and throat between songs. I know some other ladies who would be interested in that position, lol.

Finally, the songs were done and Joe said his goodbyes to the cameras and walked off. However, that was not the end! He returned a few minutes later and told us he was going to perform a few extra songs just for us that weren't going to air on CMT. I was thrilled, but my friend cynically told me that these would be the songs added as part of the "bonus features" if they decide to put this Crossroads out on DVD.

One of these was "Personal Manager" which cracked me up. "Funk 49" was also one of the extras as was "Lucky that Way." I think "Wrecking Ball" was, too. (All this "I think" is because at this point I was VERY dizzy and it was all beginning to blur!)

While the show wasn't quite what I'd expected, I'm still very glad I went. It was something special and I am happy I got to be a part of it, no matter how miniscule.