Concerts

It is probably no secret that there is not much in my life that I love than a good concert. The problem is that they are SO expensive. So I thought that today I would give you a list of some of the best concerts I have been to and ones that are worth the money for sure!

One of, if not the all time, best concerts I have ever been to is Ed Sheeran. I saw his first US headlining show and Passenger opened for him. The entire experience was amazing. I went with my parents and one of my friends and to this day, almost 2 years later, we are all still talking about it

Along the same lines, after about a 6 year wait, I finally saw Taylor Swift live. It was a comedy of errors with tickets. I didn't get presale or general sale and had a complete emotional breakdown. There were no tickets to be gotten anywhere. Then the miracle came. I was picked for pit tickets. This meant I was in the stage. I was front row. Taylor Swift grabbed my hand. Just let that sink in for a minute. Ed Sheeran was the opening act so it made it even more amazing. She puts on an incredible show to be topped in production by very few.

I have seen Demi Lovato 3 times now. Each show has been better than the previous. Most recently I saw her Neon Lights tour and had floor seats. It was an overall amazing show. Demi was flawless in her vocals as always which was extra impressive because she was extremely sick which I knew from soundcheck. The high light of the day for me was getting to hang out with Little Mix before the show for a while. If you don't know my connection to the band you may want to check out this post. They also put on an amazing show and Jesy even pointed at me and sang one line of one of their songs that applied to what I had told them directly to me.

Because this post could drag on for hours, I think I am going to cap it at one more band. I have seen We The Kings 3(?) times in the last year and will be seeing them twice more in the next month and a half. These guys put on a SHOW. They are so high energy and so talented. All of the member are fantastic, although I am partial to Charles because I have watched him on YouTube for the last 5 years.  Travis, the lead singer is talented enough to make anyone not want to sing again. Danny is one of the best drummers I have ever seen. Hunter and Coley hold down the rhythm flawlessly, sidenote, I have also never seen anyone with as much energy on stage as Coley.

I hope that this helps a little bit in reviewing some concerts and you will be able to choose wisely where to spend your money. You can't go wrong with ANY of the people I mentioned in this post.

Representing All the Women, Salute!

It's Music Monday!! Now, for a warning, this week is going to be music heavy because of my trip. Today, though, we are starting with an album review. As many of you know I am a huge Little Mix fan and opened for them this summer. Today they released their second album, Salute. I have already listened to whole CD and it is out of this world. It is an amazing mix of pop and urban that you can't help but dance to. There are also some beautiful, emotional ballads that will make you feel every word that they are singing with them. My favorite songs are Little Me, especially the unplugged version, and Boy.

Make sure you buy it, listen to it, and then let me know what your favorites are! I would love to talk to some people about it. What new music have you been listening to recently? I am always looking for new music both for reviews and myself. Hope your week is going as amazing as mine is. I will see you tomorrow with an update on my trip!

Opening for Little Mix: The Best Day of My Life

Why hello there again blog friends, look at me, blogging two days in a row. Today I wanted to fill you in on one of the most amazing things that has EVER happened to me. 

As you may know, I am a massive fan of the UK girl group, Little Mix. They have been very big inspirations to me and I absolutely love their music. Well............back in March/early April they started a competition, Mixers Magnets. It was a contest to get Little Mix to come to your country. Myself along with many other amazing US Mixers fought tirelessly to get the United States to won, and we did! The next stage of the contest came in deciding where Little Mix would visit. There was a list of cities announced and the closest to me was Miami which is about a 5 hour drive. I took part in the first few challenges but the big moment came for me when they announced a cover contest! Being a singer I jumped on this right away. I quickly started rehearsing and working hard to make their song Wings, my own. There was only one small problem, I GOT THE DEADLINE WRONG. I thought that I had another full day to properly film a video but instead I found out at 5pm at my dad's office that the entry was due at 6pm! Luckily there was an old guitar there and I had my laptop. Thinking fast I balanced a few boxes on top of each other as a make-shift tripod for my laptop and sat on top of an exam table to film with the old, lousy guitar. After quick editing and rendering, I got the video in literally 5 minutes before the deadline. Thinking nothing of it, I went home and had dinner and then went on twitter. I didn't know why but my interactions were blowing up. People were tweeting me things like "THEY POSTED ABOUT YOU" and "CONGRATS" and I was incredibly confused. I finally saw one tweet saying something about my cover and almost had a heart attack. I remember running into my parents room and yelling "I THINK I WON BUT I AM NOT SURE" and running back to my room to check. Sure enough, I had won. The girls had watched and picked my cover as their favorite in the country! I was so excited and overwhelmed that I cried for quite a long time. It meant the world to me and gave me the biggest validation as a singer. They even posted my cover on their website.

The Winning Cover

I went on with my normal life not thinking about it more than to make myself happy from the memory. Then, Miami won the contest! My mom was amazing and said she would drive me across the state to see them perform. The concert was on 6/1/12. We have family that live about half way so were were going to leave the night before and stay with them. My dad was going to stay home with our dog. An hour before we were supposed to leave I got a DM on twitter from them asking me if I was coming to the event. I told them that I was and they sent me a message asking me if I could bring my guitar because the girls would like to hear my cover!!!! I got really excited and replied that I could for sure and they asked me to call a phone number. I quickly called and the next thing that happened blew my mind. I was asked if I would open for them the next day in Miami. I feel bad for the person on the other side of the phone. I just kept asking them "Are you serious?" and he started to laugh. The first thing I did was call my dad and tell him. I am pretty sure that he started crying. I wanted to wait until my mom got home so that I could see her face. I also called one of my best friends and told her and then I just started crying while on the phone because I couldn't believe what was happening. 

We quickly called my cousins and asked them if they could watch our dog so that my dad could come and then we headed to my cousins house, me, my mom and dad, and our dog Maddie all in the car with our bags. I posted on facebook what was happening and the entire ride to their house I had almost everyone I know calling me asking me about it. The night was a blur and sleep was nonexistent. All I remember is obsessing over how I was going to do my hair.

I set my alarm for 4 am to get up and get ready so that we could be on the road by 7. I was excited and hyper and emotional but there was one thing I wasn't, and that was nervous. We headed out on our way to Miami and I would like to say sorry to my parents because I know I talked the entire car ride. We got lost in a scary section of Miami but we finally made it to the mall where the concert was being held. 

When we got there, 4 hours before it started, the line was already huge. I walked to go get in line but my dad went up to the check in table and said to the people "Hi, my daughter is opening today," and the next thing I know the guy that I had talked to on the phone came over. He got us checked in and told me to come back in about 2 hours for sound check. We went into the mall where I bought a very cool Wings inspired necklace from Forever 21 to wear to perform and just walked around until it was time to go back. We went back at 2 and it was time to sound check. I went up on stage in front of the couple thousand people that were already there and started to play and sing for about 20 seconds. Even though it wasn't very long, people started to cheer and if it was possible, I got even more excited. Next I got interviewed by a few people and someone from the radio station until they brought me to the room backstage where we stayed until it was time to perform. We hung out with Little Mix's guitar player Curtis who was as nice as can be. Time seemed to move so slowly while I was waiting. Then they came and gave me a 10 minute warning and told me that after I performed, they would take me to meet the girls. I had been so excited about performing, I had almost forgotten that I was going to get to meet my idols. At this point I took a few deep breaths and got ready to go out and perform. The next thing I knew I was waiting side stage as they introduced me and the place started cheering. 

Doing Interviews

Crowd before sound check

Sound check

Curtis, the guitar player

Cool Little Mix Balloom

Ironic box of wings by me while practicing Wings

Backstage with my parents 

Me and my mom

The moment that it hit me that I was opening

Very into rehearsing

Little Mix guitar case

I went out on stage and played my cover of Wings that won the contest and let me tell you, there is nothing more terrifying than playing a cover of a song in front of the artist and 5,000 of their biggest fans. I nailed it if I do say so myself. At the end the most amazing thing happened, the entire place started chanting my name. That is the kind of thing I have dreamed about since I was 4 years old and it actually happened. 

Amazing sign that someone made for me

Me onstage

After this I got to watch Little Mix perform from the side of the stage and they were amazing. When they finished the person that I had been talking to all day that had told me where to go and what to do told me to come with him, that the girls wanted to meet me. They brought me back into the room I had been in and there they were. I tried my best to stay calm but it was hard. I had made them each hats and I was able to give them to them. The most amazing thing is that the girls knew who I was when I met them. They told me that they loved my cover and loved how I changed it up and I was pretty much speechless. They each gave me a hug and we took pictures and they signed my CD and magazine and it was incredible. 

Little Mix performing

Backstage with the girls

I even had a couple of surreal moments during the weekend. Before I performed I had two people to stop me to take a picture because they recognized me and that was pretty amazing. I also had people stop me on the way out when they realized I was the one that sang. The next morning, we had stayed at a hotel, my dad and I went down to the lobby for breakfast. I was tired and too lazy to change out of sweat pants or do my hair and makeup because I knew no one would notice. Well, half way through a few girls came up to me and asked if I was Kelsey that opened for Little Mix!!!! I suddenly wished that I had at least put on some makeup, haha. 

It was the most amazing thing ever and then it got more amazing. I received an email on that Monday  letting me know that my interviews and performance were going to be made into a My Day, My Life episode for Teen.com!!!! This is a series that I watch and love and that has been done on a lot of my biggest idols and now it was going to be on me. It came out about two weeks later and had almost 20,000 views overnight. 

This entire experience has been one of the most amazing things to ever happen to me and I am so thankful to everyone that made it happen especially Little Mix, their management at Columbia Records and most of all my parents for making it all happen. I got to live out my dream and now that I've had a taste of it, I want it even more. I also vlogged my experience so  I will make sure to link that at the end of the post along with the Little Mix website post about my cover and the My Day, My Life episode.

My Day, My Life:

My Vlog from the day:

Post on Little Mix's website:

http://www.little-mix.com/mixers-magnets-rewards/news/2013-04-24/mixers-magnets-us-rewards-results-wings-cover

I had so much fun getting to relive this while writing this post and I hope you liked it! I think I am going to make sure to post about something music related every Monday and make it Music Mondays.

Much love,

Kelsey <3