Amanda and I were lucky enough to see the Kelly Clarkson concert in downtown Durham last night after a long spell of not seeing a single show.

Our last was several years back. Just looking it up, it was more than several years — in fact it was our first Kelly Clarkson show in Charlotte back in 2005. Wow.

Anyway, I’ll write up a full review of the show in the coming days, but in the meantime, here’s the set list she played last night at the DPAC downtown:

Dark Side
Behind These Hazel Eyes
Since U Been Gone
Gone
You Love Me
Heavy in Your Arms (Florence and the Machine cover)
Gravity (Sara Bareilles cover)
Medley – The Trouble With Love Is / Walk Away / How I Feel / I Want You
I Know You Won’t (Carrie Underwood cover)
Don’t You Wanna Stay
Let Me Down
I Forgive You
Already Gone
Breakaway
You Still Won’t Know What It’s Like
Stronger
My Life Would Suck Without You

-Encore-

Never Again (Acoustic piano only)
Because of You
Mr. Know It All
Miss Independent

Great set. Quick stats on the breakdown of tracks per album (including the medley, but not the covers and the 1 yet-to-be-released track):
Thankful: 2 Tracks
Breakaway: 6 Tracks
My December: 2 Tracks
All I Ever Wanted: 3 Tracks
Stronger: 7 Tracks

Not surprisingly, Stronger — the newest album had the most tracks, but Breakway had almost as many, with My December and Thankful being under represented. As you get more albums, it’s bound to happen. More greats tracks have to be mothballed unless you do a monster multi-hour set.

My full concert review will be coming soon.

Anyone that knows me knows that I’ve got a soft spot for anything Kelly Clarkson. Yeah, maybe even a bit of an obsession. I’m OK with that.

Anyway, I’m psyched for her new album that’s coming out at the end of October, and pre-ordered the CD the day it went on sale. The first single, “Mr. Know It All” was released recently, and the debut of the video was earlier today. Really digging the track.

Check out the video of for “Mr. Know It All” from YouTube below.

Those around me know I’ve got a bit of an obsession with Kelly Clarkson. Her tracks top my most played tracks in my iTunes library, alongside of seemingly congruent artists such as Van Halen, Metallica, Foo Fighters and a bunch of others. I didn’t even watch “American Idol” till I heard some clips of her singing in the first season. As it were, I don’t watch “AI” anymore.

Anyway, I’ve absolutely loved Kelly Clarkson’s first three studio albums, – especially the second and third albums – “Breakaway” and “My December,” respectively. I like the rock stuff more than the ballads, though I don’t mind listening to either album all the way through.

Unfortunately, not everyone agreed her third album rocked as much as I did. Sales were pretty abysmal, and her fourth album, being released may be a return to safer waters of the pop styling.

This morning, I heard a 30-second audio sample of the first single, “My Life Would Suck Without You” on YouTube (that is no longer up BTW) and sadly I didn’t like what I heard. It was sadly pretty bland/generic pop and if this is the best track off the album, I’m really worried.

Kudos to RCA for doing some actual marketing for this album, but I hope it’s not to promote her weakest album yet. This first single will be released on Janury 16, 2008 . The album will be out March 17, 2009. I’ll definitely be grabbing both on said dates and really hope I’m pleasantly surprised.

This is some info I found on the new album, attribution unknown:

Masquerade is the upcoming fourth studio album by American pop rock singer-songwriter Kelly Clarkson, due for March 2009.[1]

Clarkson has stated that she is working on a new album, and is working with producer and OneRepublic front man, Ryan Tedder. Tedder has confirmed that he is working on new material with Clarkson for her fourth studio album. Tedder told Digital Spy that Clarkson’s new songs will feature big choruses” and “heavy drum programming, and he mentioned that the songs are influenced by the band Garbage, while one song will feature an experimental bridge that was inspired by Mozart.[2] Also in an interview she stated that she had written a song called “Cry” with Jason Halbert.

Clarkson has since confirmed a name of a track recorded with Tedder, called “If I Can’t Have You”.[3] She has not stated that the track would appear on the album.

Album’s first single is called “My Life Would Suck Without You” and will be released for adds on January 19, 2009

I haven’t made a post about Rock Band in awhile… haven’t really played Rock Band or the 360 in general in awhile. Life has been getting in the way.

Anyway, I have been watching my game-related RSS feeds, watching the weekly downloadable content for Rock Band (and the less frequent downloads for Guitar Hero III). Kudos to Rock Band developer, Harmonix for keeping their promise of new content pretty much weekly. Everyone’s going to have opinions on the quality of the tracks, etc. I for one, think they’ve pretty much sucked for weeks – maybe months.

Obviously it takes more than Harmonix picking a song and putting into the game. There’s negotiations with the artists, labels, etc. Assuming that’s getting easier and easier as the rhythm rock gaming genre makes more and more for the gaming and music industries, it should be easier to get new tracks from artists big and small.

With that being said, here’s a few suggestions of songs I would love to have in Rock Band:

“Money For Nothing” – Dire Straits
“Blue on Black” – Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
“I Can’t Drive 55″ – Sammy Hagar
“Like a Stone” – Audioslave
“Magic Carpet Ride ” – Steppenwolf
“Sober” – Tool
“Gratitude” – Beastie Boys
“Higher” – Creed
“The Old Apartment” – Barenaked Ladies
“You Could Be Mine” – Guns N Roses
“Layla” – Derek and the Dominos
“Crossroads” – Cream
“Wake Up” – Rage Against the Machine
“The Impression That I Get” – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
“In the Air Tonight” – Phil Collins
“Low” – Cracker
“Sugar, We’re Goin Down ” – Fall Out Boy
“Arrow” – Candlebox
“Hemorrhage (In My Hands) ” – Fuel
“Vertigo” – U2
“With or Without You” – U2
“Livin’ on a Prayer ” – Bon Jovi
“Semi-Charmed Life” – Third Eye Blind
“Rusty Cage” – Soundgarden
“Outshined” – Soundgarden
“Baba O’Riley ” – The Who
“Life Is a Highway” – Tom Cochrane
“I Want You to Want Me” – Cheap Trick
“Long Way Down” – Goo Goo Dolls
“All Along the Watchtower” – Jimi Hendrix
“Fire” – Jimi Hendrix
“The Difference” – The Wallflowers
“One Vision” – Queen
“Zero” – Smashing Pumpkins
“Today” – Smashing Pumpkins
“Since U Been Gone” – Kelly Clarkson (shut it! I’ve got a special place in my heart for all things KC)
Any AC/DC tracks, but preferably the entire “Back in Black” album
Any Led Zeppelin tracks – IV’s tracks would be a good place to start
Anything Van Halen &ndash VH I and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge are excellent places to start
Any Beatles tracks
Any more Foo Fighters tracks they can get

Man, I could go on and on with songs from my iTunes library that’d I’d love to play in Rock Band. Just a couple of these tracks being available as DLC would make Keefer a happy boy!

So we’re sitting here watching last night’s American Idol and for the second show in a row, I’m bored to tears. I’m just not engaged this year one iota. None of the contestants are standing out to me. There’s not a single contestant I’d waste my time and effort to call in and vote for! The bickering between the three judges is tired. Randy is lame. Paula is incomprehensible, and… well I usually agree with still. Plus, I’m so tired of Fox dragging the show out night after night *and* Fox’s shameless self-promotion and product placement.

So anyway, I’m bored with the show and I think Amanda’s getting there too. I’m this close to cancelling TiVo’s season pass. The show’s run its course. They ignited the careers of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry. Now it’s time to close the curtain on the show.

Added Comments (Amanda): Yeah, I am totally done with American Idol. I was so frustrated and utterly bored last night with the performances, lack of talent, the bickering between the judges, the goofy youthfulness of the contestants… the whole thing was annoying and old. They’ve worn out their welcome for sure. Long gone are the days of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry.

I swear I’ve never been to Belgium.. ever!

Kelly Clarkson Fan Gets Too Close During Concert

Happy Halloween everyone! So a couple of us dressed up here at work. Bret, Jeff and I were all over the hill super heroes – Spider-Man, Batman and Superman respectively. Everyone had a good laugh and we rocked it. Two others dressed up at work as well.

We also had our chip collection luncheon, which was a lot of fun. I ended up winning a pair of Carolina Hurricanes tickets, right behind the player’s bench and then a Kelly Clarkson Framed CD posted. LOL I initially had won a $150 gift card to Fins, but traded it away. Not sure if that ended up a good move or not.

Anyway, happy halloween!

The pictures of the Guzi Halloween are now up on my Flickr account. Check ‘em out. They’re pretty funny!

Amanda and I were just talking about what Kelly’s second single was going to be off the “My December” album. We both love the cut, “Sober,” and thought that was a given to be the next single. It’s a damn great song that probably should have been the first single off the album. We thought we had confirmation that it was getting ready to be released as the next single when almost the entire track was featured at the end of the Smallville season premiere. But, I just saw the video posted yesterday for “Don’t Waste Your Time” – decent song, but Sober’s a much better track.

Looking at WikiPedia, Sober was released as a single on June 6, 2007. But as far as I’m aware, there isn’t a video. A few paragraphs down, it says, “Current rumors are that the second single in UK will be “Don’t Waste Your Time” with a date of release to be confirmed,” so maybe “Sober” was only released here. Too bad it didn’t get any real airplay here. I wasn’t even aware it was a single.

In case anyone missed them or even noticed they were gone, I’ve posted all of the reviews I’ve written over the years. I haven’t written anything recently since the Kelly Clarkson concert review I did a few years back. The hope is that I’ll start posting new reviews on occasion, most likely Xbox 360 reviews, TV reviews or maybe a movie review or two. I may be a little rusty, but hopefully, I’ll be able to get right back into it. Links are below to the list of reviews.

Game Reviews
Miscellaneous Reviews
Movie Reviews
Music Reviews
TV Reviews

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Rock Bloggin’: Kelly Clarkson and John Mayer Spill Their Guts on the Web