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It was a beautiful, sunny, summery day in Hollywood. The traffic was slow, the freeways full, as we crept into Studio City around 3:00pm. There was a bright blue canvas tent set up in front of the big studio with a line of very, very dressy people waiting to get into the taping. Beautiful young girls with very short skirts, high stilletto heels, long shiny hair, young men in colorful dress shirts and slacks, some older fans in tasteful black dresses, heels, lots of jewelry. It was a very good looking group. But people were very anxious on the line because even though they had said they would not be assigning seat numbers and checking people in until 5:45 pm, they were already starting to assign numbers. We knew that when the seats ran out, the other people in line would be out of luck. Also one's entire group had to be present to be assigned seats, so if you had one person arriving at the later time, you would have to step out of line and wait until they came, possibly forfeiting any seats at all, or getting very bad ones. It was a mess. Plus you could not park in the lot until 4:30 but at that time you had to move your car from the street to the lot, while somehow not losing your place in line.

Although it was very grueling, tricky, full of stress, my friends and I all managed to get into the line and were assigned tickets. I won't even go into all the shuffling of numbers, reforming of groups while waiting for other people, general confusion that occurred, but we all made it in. There were many young people in black uniforms shepherding us around, herding us constantly actually. And we waited and waited and were herded to the next spot and waited and waited. Finally, there were two long lines waiting to make the walk to the soundstage. After a final round of waiting, we were taken into the theater and sat in our assigned seats. It was a big oval around a large shiny stage made from what looked like faux marble. Ricky Minor from American Idol and his band were on one side and another band was at the back. There was a jumbo screen, although not a huge one.

Cory, the warm up guy from American Idol, came out and started entertaining us and telling us what we would need to do. We were to be part of the show. So, the first act we saw was Kristen Chenowith, Christina Applegate and, of course, Carrie, doing a medley of 50's songs like "Leader of the Pack". They were dressed in frothy pink shirtwaists with many petticoats and high blonde beehive hairdos. I can't remember all the songs in the medley, but it was cute, although so reminiscent of Lawrence Welk, but cute.
They repeated the act twice and the second time was much better than the first.

Next the group that won the reality show about bands, The Clark Brothers, now called Sons of Sylvia, played "It Will be a Blue, Blue Christmas Without You". The stage was covered with giant Christmas packages, a toy soldier and a big bear. The camera was constantly zeroing in on the bear's nose, for some reason. These young men had some sort of sound issues and repeated their song a couple of times with one false start.

Both these acts were applauded and everyone did their best to be enthusiastic.

Ok, guys, sorry but I am getting too sleepy with this late, late night posting so I am going to cut to the chase.
Everytime Cory mentioned David Cook, the fans in the audience, in pockets around the theater would applaud and scream but this was not an entirely DC audience at all. I think most of the people were there for Carrie principally.

So David comes out to a good applause. The band is in back, with Neal, Monty and Andy lined up in front of Kyle. David looks good, very, very good. His hair is darker than lately, newly cut a bit shorter, his scruff trimmed, grey and black outfit with black !$%+$# and pants tucked into boots in a way we have never seen before. And then he sings Lie. OMG, his beautiful rich voice fills that soundstage absolutely dwarfing what had come before. It is stunning. He does not step away from the mike at the acapella part but still does the acapella and it is gorgeous. Without the screams of the fans and with the good sound system, the full beauty of his voice could be heard and I got shivers. Incredible. And this Carrie Underwood crowd absolutely roars after and everyone is on their feet. Long sustained applause. It is electric. As with all the acts they did it again, Yay, this time with a very sweet introduction by Carrie talking about how much she loved the record and how this was her favorite song and that David was more than a colleague, though she didn't say it quite that way, rather he was her friend. And his second Lie was so beautiful.

I am too sleepy to remember exactly when but they were waiting to start the second song and David answered questions from the audience. He was asked his favorite bands, Our Lady Peace and The Anthemic (this after the guys were making gestures like hey, what about us).

One hilarious and touching episode was with this 14-16 year old blonde girl there with her parents. She was crying and crying after he sang Lie. Cory asked her why she was crying and she said "Because it is just so beautiful". And then he says "How many David Cook concerts have you seen" and she says she almost got to go to Newport Beach but she couldn't get anyone to take her and so spent the whole day and evening locked in her bedroom crying and playing his record over and over. So her parents brought her to this. So Cory says "awwww, come down here" and she is shaking badly but he brings her to David who hugs her twice. It was so sweet. David was so nice to her.

Another little girl asked if she could sing with David and she got to stand up there with him and sing Happy Birthday to the birthday people in the audience.

Janesixtytwo was sitting next to me and she asked a question. Cory asked her name and she said "Jane" and David remembered her and said "Hi Jane" and she said "Hi David" and then she asked when his last concert was and where, so we could all go. But he said he didn't know, he hoped they would play up to the end of the year, but he just went where they sent him. (So, peeps, if you want more dates, sounds like to me you could probably get them.)

One woman said her father's name was David Cook and David was special to her because of the name. David joked about the father having all kinds of wonderful attributes since he was a David Cook.

Another person complimented his boots saying something like "bueno zapatos" (?) and he said well, they just put me in them but gracias.

Anyway, there may have been more questions but by this time I am in Davetrance even though he is rather far away, I don't understand what happened.

So now Carrie comes out in this shiny little rock outfit and The Anthemic has left the stage. David absolutely shreds this Van Halen song with her, it is so good. As usual they do it twice, the second time may have been even hotter than the first, but they were amazing. His guitar playing was really good and again his voice just filled the room, took it all over. There was a little jokey exchange about how he was just there to push his record and she wouldn't have had him if the producers hadn't made her at the last minute. It was supposed to be teasy and they seemed to enjoy it. During the hard rock song, there was a lot of chemistry between them, I thought. Maybe flirty?

So, I am too sleepy to continue but after David left the stage and left the room, the energy just seemed sucked out of the room, deflated. There were other numbers, SYTYCD dancers did some things, very well, Carrie's mom had a funny skit, Carrie had a funny Dolly Parton skit with Kristen Chenowith, Carrie sang a sweet song about her mom and another song in front of a fake bar with a big bunch of dancers.
They were all nice, but the David songs were a whole level up.

David was surprised at how the audience adored him. He looked behind him because he thought there was a big applause sign. Cory said, no applause sign, man, that's all for you.

So, I mentioned about how frustrating it was to do the taping, but it was so, so worth it. I am going to go see what else I can attend before the tour is over. Sorry, this has sort of ended not with a bang but a whimper, but it is almost 4 am and time for bed.

Hope that helps describe it a little. I'm sure Scott and the others can fill in what I have forgotten. G'nite dwopers