Tidbit: Taylor Swift Concert!

Hey guys! Saturday night, my mum, me and my best friend, Janae, went to the Taylor Swift concert in Vancouver!   Taylor Swift has been on the top of my list of concerts I want to go to and last night that wish was granted! And I got to see her with two of my favourite girls in the world! Needless to say, it was amazing.

Now, we left a little bit later, due to Janae having a dance show right before, but we eventually got there, parked and had a quick bite to eat at Subway and then went in... The concert was at BC Place, instead of Rogers Arena, where concerts usually are in Vancouver. Rogers is where the Canucks play and BC Place is the huge stadium where the BC Lions (Football) and Vancouver Whitecaps (Soccer) play... It is a LOT bigger than Rogers. We walked in, trying to find our seats and I was shocked at how huge the stadium looked. I've been in there before, for football games, but it was different, considering there were floor seats as well and a HUGE STAGE. Last night was a 42 THOUSAND people show... And it was sold out, completely.

The opener for the opener for the opener (three openers.. now the word opener looks weird..) was Joel Crouse, a country singer from Nashville and he was really good! I would strongly recommend checking him out, if you get the chance! Then Austin Mahone came on but by then Janae and I had gone hunting for T-Shirts and completely missed him! I've actually never heard his songs, so I didn't really know what I missed, I guess. And then, Ed Sheeran took to the stage. Oh, Ed. It was so different, seeing him in this HUGE stadium filled with people, unlike back in October when I saw him in Seattle in a little tiny venue and he was the main act. It was strange to see him on such a huge stage. I must say, I could tell some of the parents of the little kids weren't exactly thrilled with his "Hell Yeah!s" and crazy loud strumming, but I thought he played amazingly, as always. My mum didn't really enjoy his performance, but I think it was one of those things where you have to be a fan to actually truly enjoy it. His music is beautiful and he is one of my absolute favourite artists, but that night, as he performed an 11 minute long version of You Need Me, I Don't Need You, I could see why some might not like it too much. But, I loved seeing him live again and am definitely looking forward to the next time he comes to town!


And then, Taylor came on the stage! She appeared behind a huge red curtain in silhouette, opening with State of Grace. Taylor brings a massive amount of energy and personality to her performance and was captivating to watch. Her little winks and smirks were adorable and she kept us all laughing as she said witty little things like: "I write a lot of songs about my feelings and I just realized that 42,000 of you just signed up for two hours of hearing about them," 

Taylor had about eight costume changes and was lightning fast with each of them. There were times where she would all of a sudden appear in a dress, having just been in short and blouse and my mum and I would look at eachother like "What? How did that just happen?" Her outfits were all super cute and totally what I was expecting to see her wear. She wore mostly high waisted shorts, flouncy skirts, pretty long dresses and of course, a lot of RED. It was extremely warm in the stadium, as that day was HOT and there were also 42,000 people in the stadium.. makes for a bit of a warm room. But Taylor's hair somehow stayed nice, even though the sweat on her brow was evident. (Jealous! My hair was frizzier than Hermione's during exam week!) 

Here's the set list:

1. "State of Grace"
2. "Holy Ground"
3. "Red"
4. "You Belong with Me"
5. "The Lucky One"
6. "Mean"
7. "Stay Stay Stay"
8. "22"
9. "Long Live"
10. "Everything Has Changed"
11. "Begin Again"
12. "Sparks Fly"
13. "I Knew You Were Trouble"
14. "All Too Well"
15. "Love Story"
16. "Treacherous"
17. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"

Janae and I!

I was so thrilled that she sang Long Live, as that's one I was hoping to hear, as well as Sparks Fly, because that's probably one of my absolute favourite songs of hers. The only songs that I was hoping she would sing was Fearless and Our Song, but obviously those are a little bit older and she had to fit songs in from the RED CD. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together was one of the most incredible finales I have EVER SEEN. It was a huge production with dancers dressed up as circus characters and Taylor in well... this:

It was an amazing production and it blew me away. The concert was so much fun and I was so glad to have experienced it with my mum and best friend. Janae and I rocked out to I Knew You Were Trouble and the whole stadium sang as loud as they could when Mean started up. It was awesome. Definitely one of the top concerts I've been to... like ever. 

I was having difficulties with my mum's phone... but that's Janae, me and my mum!

Are you a Taylor Swift fan? Have you ever been to one of her concerts? Are you going to go during her Red tour? Let me know what you thought of her show, if you've been to one!

Happy reading! And Happy Canada day!
~Kristy 

TGIF: Carrie Underwood Concert

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GUYS I JUST GOT HOME FROM THE CARRIE UNDERWOOD CONCERT AND AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 Okay, so for my 16th birthday, my best friend, Jenna, surprised me with Carrie Underwood concert tickets... I HAD NO IDEA. My mum kept it a secret and told all of the people I usually babysit for to not book me that night and I was totally clueless the whole time.... OH MY GOODNESS. Guys, it was an amazing concert! This was her last stop of the Blown Away Tour and I must say, it was absolutely incredible. She puts on a great show. Carrie has an adorable accent and amazing outfits and her voice is just to die for, obviously.

I remember when I was little, watching her very first audition on American Idol... Remember this?

WELL...

Oh my goodness. She's incredibly talented and incredibly gorgeous? What?!!!

 Growing up, Carrie was my favourite country singer. Yes I had other favourite singers, but Carrie was definitely top 5 out of all for the longest time. And then I would get teased because I like Country music and it was weird, supposedly, so I only listened to her music at home or in the car with my mum. But I still always loved her music. Now, seeing her live after basically 9 years of being a huge fan was just unbelievable. Her music is beautiful and so is her heart. What she did with this tour was donate 1$ from every ticket sold to Red Cross. AND, for all the Canadian shows that she played, she donated that money to the CANADIAN Red Cross! (Bonus points, Carrie!) They donated One. Million. Dollars. :O So cool!

I forgot to write down her set list, but basically she sang songs from both her new album and some of her older stuff. Her performances of the classic stuff like Before He Cheats and Wasted were so amazing and I will admit, I teared up when she sang Temporary Home and then followed with Jesus Take the Wheel. Those two songs... AHHH! She modified All-American Girl a little bit to suit her life now and it was super cute, because instead of "She was falling for the senior football star" she put "hockey star" and added in an "All-Canadian Girl" because well, Mike Fisher. Ahh I can't even describe how amazing this concert was. I am a total concert-junkie and to have finally seen one of my all-time favourite artists was wonderful.


Do you guys like Carrie Underwood? Are any of you country music fans? Have you gone to any good concerts lately? Let me know in the comments!

Happy Friday!
~Kristy

Review: Overnight Sensation by Hal Eisenberg

Author: Hal Eisenberg

Publisher: Bells and Castanets

Page Count: 238 pages, Paperback

Date Published: July 28th 2012

Find it on Goodreads: Overnight Sensation

Source: A copy was sent to me from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Rating:  3.5/5

 Fifteen year-old Jonah Levine is practically invisible at Applecrest High. His Facebook page is pathetic, his baseball skills are mediocre at best, and his IQ seems to drop 50 points when talking to girls. But everything changes when his rock band, Hitstreak, becomes the hottest teen sensation in the country. And now they’re about to perform in front of 15,000 screaming fans.

So why isn’t he jumping for joy?


Well, for starters, that hit on the radio wasn’t really recorded by his band. In fact, six months ago, he and his friends could barely play a note between them. And now they’re about to perform in front of 15,000 screaming fans. What begins as a mindless prank quickly spins out of control, involving his father’s secret past as a 70’s rocker, a high school bully who wants in on the action, and a powerful, ruthless, media mogul who will stop at nothing to claim the band as his own. Will Jonah prevail? Or will he and his band go down in flames and become the biggest farce in pop music history?

My Thoughts: Entertaining and fun, I enjoyed it quite a bit!

 I have not read many books like this, where it is just pure contemporary, super fun, and from a male perspective. It was a nice change! Jonah was a 15 year old, so my age, so it was kind of fun reading from his POV. The entire time I was reading I was mostly wondering, is this how my friends think? I loved being in Jonah's head during the times where him and his crush Theresa were interacting. They were really awkward and sweet, kind of realistic. Although there were some issues that I'll get into later. I did enjoy Jonah's character. He was a bit bland at first, in my opinion, but I began to like him more and more as the conflict grew and he started to make better decisions. The other characters were mostly just 'there' for me, I didn't feel much for them. I wish the author had put a little bit more time into developing the secondary characters. It would have been nice to learn a bit more about them!

The only thing I had problems with involving this book was some of the writing, and a few more than acceptable punctuation/spelling mistakes. I found the writing to be really awkward at times and I got a bit bored. There was some choppiness and it took me a while to get through some parts because it was a bit dull. But I got through that as the story was entertaining and I hadn't read anything like it before. A bit far-fetched, but fun nonetheless. What really bothered me was the punctuation and grammatical errors in some parts. At the beginning it didn't bother me too much as it was just a few missing quotation marks and a few typos, but as I read on, I noticed more and more. Now, it's not that big of a deal, but it did slow me down at a few parts with my OCD tendencies. There were some points where I didn't know who was talking or if they had stopped and that became a bit irritating. I think if there had been one more read-through before publication, it could have been fixed.

Overall, this was a fun book that kept me occupied on a long car ride! I enjoyed the musical aspect to it and the way I could relate to the characters that were my age. I liked Eisenberg's creativity and expect to see a few more good books from him in the future.

Happy reading!
~Kristy

Random Friday Post: New Ed Sheeran Music Video!

Hey guys! So it's Friday and I'm just starting a book today, so I thought that sans a review I would just post something AWESOME that was released this week...The GIVE ME LOVE music video!!!! If you didn't know, I adore Ed Sheeran...He's up there with my books. So, yeah! Enjoy!

Alright,  that's all I had to say today!
I'll talk to y'all tomorrow!
~Kristy

Tidbit: Ed Sheeran Concert!

Hey guys! Saturday I went to the Ed Sheeran concert in Seattle!!! You may or may not know, but I LOVE Ed Sheeran. He is my absolute favorite singer in the universe, and has been for a while now. I live just outside of Vancouver and because originally the concert there was 19+ (and then they changed it -_-) I had tickets for the Seattle concert! I went with my three best friends, and we met up with two other friends down there as well. My mom drove us, and she officially has the mother of the year award for driving us so far. We had a two hour wait at the border, plus a 2-3 hour drive there, and then we didn't end up getting home until 2:30 am! If you want to read all about the day and concert, here's my 'little' recap of it! P.S. if you read it all, I applaud you...

So, on Saturday my three best friends showed up at my house and we left around 10am. The border line up was insane, and we got delayed for a while, but we finally left the border area around 12 (CRAZY, right!?) and were on our way! We drove for about two hours and stopped at Alderwood Mall for a bit and did some shopping, and then we were on our way! We got to the venue at just before 6pm and met our other friends who were there, so our spot in the line wasn't TOO bad, but not great... We waited until a while after 7 and then we were in! The venue was pretty tiny, and there were tons of people there, so we were in the middle of the crowd.There were some REALLY tall people right in front of us, so I couldn't really see a thing, unless someone shifted for a minute, but at least I could hear! Being short really sucks.

From left to right: Paula, Jenna, Rachel, Danica, ME! and Cassidy.

Selah Sue came on and performed and I LOVED her music! She's so gorgeous and an amazing musician! The only thing about her performance was that there were a lot of people that were pretty disrespectful when she asked for quiet, and I thought that was really sad. But her music was amazing!
Then after a few minutes, Passenger came on, which was exciting! He played a few songs and talked to us. It was really a fun performance, especially his "Things I Hate" song!


Then finally Ed came on! The entire venue went completely wild, obviously. He started immediately with Give Me Love, which I teared up a bit with, because his voice was SO powerful. Here's the full set list from last night:
Give Me Love
Drunk
UNI
Grade 8
Wayfaring Stranger (cover of American folk song)
Small Bump
Wake Me Up
Be My Husband by Nina Simone (cover)
Kiss Me
Heart's On Fire by Passenger (cover) with Passenger and Selah Sue
Lego House
(encore)
You Need Me, I Don't Need You
Guiding Light by Foy Vance (cover)
Parting Glass (cover of traditional Irish song)
A Team

Some of the many highlights of the concert:
Give Me Love was so powerful and such an amazing start to the concert. Then he started playing Drunk and everyone sang along at the top of their lungs. Afterwards he kind of explained 'how this concert was going to work' and said that if you're too cool to sing, this was the wrong show to come to. He began UNI and (I'm proud to say that I know every single word to it) his 'chorus' all sang along. When he played Wayfaring Stranger, the entire room was quiet, and his voice was all you could hear. The lights were all dimmed and blue, which gave this chilly ambiance. It was so amazing. Then same with Small Bump, he asked for silence, and everyone was pretty quiet. Obviously there are going to be some people who feel the need to scream out, but over all Small Bump was so powerful. Then Ed said that he was going to perform a song that he hadn't in a while, and as soon as he mentioned it was the only song he's written under the influence of alcohol, I was SO happy. I've wanted to see him perform Wake Me Up ever since I heard it. We all sang along and laughed and it was such an exhilarating performance. Then he played Be My Husband, and that was beautiful. I mean... Beautiful. I can't describe it. He continued with the story about his godparents, and I am so happy that I was able to hear him explain the story, because it's actually one of my favorite little 'tales'. He sang Kiss Me and I teared up again a little bit. (NO SHAME) Then he invited Passenger and Selah up on stage and Passenger spoke a bit about Ed, which was SO sweet, and then they sang Passenger's song. Their voices are all so amazing, and together it was absolute heaven. Then he explained that this was going to be his last song, which really confused me, because he had so many left.. But then mentioned an encore and then the whole audience erupted. Anyways, after a little funny story about him coming on for an encore and there being only two people left, he played Lego House, and then 'left'. After maybe a minute he came back on and IMMEDIATELY started playing YNMIDNY... OH. MY. GOD. It lasted for probably twenty minutes and was the most powerful performance I have ever witnessed. His version of Parting Glass was so beautiful, and he flowed automatically into A Team, and everyone SCREAMED. Then he left and it was over and... L
After he left the stage we went and met Selah and Passenger and got them both to sign our tickets, and got a picture with Selah, which was so cool! Then we left and waited outside for a bit to see if Ed would come out, but then the security guy said he wasn't and then a while after we heard that he tweeted he couldn't, so I was bummed, but honestly, after his story about meeting Foy Vance after going to so many of his concerts and the whole 'Don't meet your hero' made me think that maybe it's better if I didn't meet him this time. But next time, I REALLY hope we'll have the chance. Then we drove home and fell asleep! So that was my whole day yesterday! If you've actually read all of this, you're amazing! <3 Saturday was one of the best days I've had in forever, and that was the most fantastic concert I have ever been to.  

Do any of you like Ed's music? If you haven't heard of him, I sincerely recommend checking him out! I've yet to meet someone who hasn't found one song of his that they didn't enjoy! (That being said, I like, love, ADORE all of them!) Or, if any of you went to one of his concerts, how was it?! Did you enjoy it? (Of course you did, it was probably amazing!)

Happy reading!
~Kristy

TGIF: Do you listen to music while reading?

HAPPY FRIDAY!!! Hello my dear followers! How are you this fine day? It is once again time for a random TGIF post! Today, I want to know: Do you like to listen to music while reading?

I personally love listening to music and reading at the same time. It helps me read better, if that makes any sense at all, considering you'd think the opposite. I, of course, always listen to some Ed Sheeran when I'm reading, because I'm a bit obsessed with him and I could listen to him during any time in my life and be content. I'm also loving Foster the People, Of Monsters and Men, The Wallflowers, and some good ol' Pink Floyd. I've been into a lot of different sorts of music lately, and I find that as long as it's not too loud, if I have music on and I'm reading a good book, I am at my happiest. There are so many amazing artists and bands out there that I am so in love with. I wish I could name all of them!

But enough about me. I want to know your opinion! Let me know in the comments if you enjoy listening to music and reading at the same time, or if you think that's too distracting. I have a friend who can't stand music in the background while she's reading, so once we were just sitting down together with our books and she got up and turned off the radio. So then, I had to go get my iPod, because I needed some background noise. :P Maybe I just don't like silence...

Anyways, let me know what you think, as well as what music you're really into right now! Give me some new bands and singers to YouTube! I love finding great music.

For now, I shall leave you with some of my favorite songs of the moment, in case you haven't heard them! :)

Happy Friday!
~Kristy

This one is from Ed's debut album + and I just love the sound. It is so gorgeous and heartfelt!

This one is another by Ed Sheeran and it is from his EP 'Songs I Wrote With Amy'. One of my favorite songs by him! I wish it was on + so that everyone could hear it!

I am in love with this band! Their music is fantastic!

 This song is so quiet and lovely.. Gorgeous!

Anything by Daughter, I'm in love with! The singer's got a gorgeous voice and the songs are all amazing!

I could just give so many more songs, but since this is a book blog, not a music blog, I shall cut it down to these five! Hope you enjoy! I'd love to hear what you think, as well as your opinion on reading and listening to music at the same time!

Tidbit: CONCERT!

Hello! Alright, I apologize in advance if you were hoping for my review on The Sky is Everywhere (that is coming either later today or tomorrow), but I thought I'd do a little 'Tidbit' since I haven't done one of those in a while... So last night I went to a concert with a few of my friends and I have to say.. I don't think I have much of a voice! It was the Simple Plan concert with These Kids Wear Crowns, All Time Low and Marianas Trench. If you haven't heard of them... I'd suggest youtubing one of them ASAP (if you like kind of.. pop/rock/punk (but not punk)/upbeat music. All of them are Canadian except for All Time Low and I have to say this, Canada seriously produces some great musicians. As does Europe, wouldn't you say so? *Canadian Pride!!!*

Marianas Trench

So yes, the concert. It was the most fun I've had in so long! I can't remember the last time I have smiled, screamed, laughed nor talked so much! All four of the bands really know how to work up a crowd and engage the audience. If you ever have the chance to see Simple Plan, take it! They're so amazing! As are the other four!

Simple Plan

If you could pick one band/singer to see in concert, who would it be? For me, I'm dying to see Ed Sheeran in concert but all the tickets for the Snow Patrol concert that he's opening for are sold out! *rampage!!!* And I'd love to see Hedley or Taylor Swift! Haha ok so that was three, and now I can check off MT and SP off my list! 

~Kristy

Tidbit- Music I'm loving

Hello all! It's been a few days since I've posted anything, so it feels a little strange updating with something non-book related! But anyway, I don't know about you but I feel that having soft, quiet music on in the background while reading is so relaxing. So I thought that because it'll be a couple of days before I review the new book I received yesterday, I'd share some of my favorite songs and artists right now. My taste in music changes sometimes, but I always adore ''indie'' bands and music that really comes from an artist's heart. So these are a few songs that I can't get enough of lately.

"Fall" by Ed  Sheeran

"Helena Beat" by Foster the People

 

"Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men

Those are just a few songs that I'm adoring right now but there are so many more exceptional artists out there. What are you listening to lately? I love finding new music so let me know! 

Have a good night.. or day depending on where you are! 

~Kristy