“What the Hell are They Drinking in Hazard?” as Said by Keith Urban, of Course.

So I have to admit, I am not really a country music fan. But after watching the Carrie Underwood/Keith Urban show tonight, I can no longer say that. I liked both acts so much that I will be buying their CDs.

The night started out with Carrie Underwood. The fans were screaming so incredibly loud as she made her way up through the floor, even if I tried to speak, I wouldn’t be able to hear myself. She was dressed in all black except for the coolest looking belt that was made of some kind of rhinestones. The way they had the stage positioned allowed her to kind of “walk through” the crowd and let everyone see her up close. I had attended a 3 Doors Down concert a couple years back and they just had the one stage up front. So there would be no way, unless you had one of the first rows that you would actually get to see what the band looked like. That’s why at tonight’s show, almost everyone on the floor and all around the bottom of the arena gave you an up close and personal view. Not only did they have the cool stage, but they had two big hanging projection screens. So if you were unable to see Carrie as she moved around, you could always watch her on the bigger-than-life screens.

Carrie’s song set included most of her hits songs from her two CDs. I think the song that I like most from her was “I Ain’t In Checotah Anymore.” She told the audience that on the big screen behind her were pictures she took herself in her hometown of Checotah, Oklahoma. It’s so easy to forget that she actually is a real person, who has a life outside of performing. I really enjoyed seeing pictures of where she was from and knowing that she took them herself. Her set tonight was really amazing; there is definitely a reason she won season four of American Idol!

I do have to say though, my main motive for wanting to come to this concert tonight was to just see Carrie Underwood. I knew who Keith Urban was, and had heard of a few of his songs here and there, but never have been a real big fan. All I can say after watching him perform live tonight is, WOW! He is an awesome performer, and not to mention one of the best guitarists I have heard. I could have just sit there and listen to him play guitar all night. He wasn’t all that bad to look at either…

Right up front, Keith let everyone know that they were filming tonight’s show for an upcoming DVD. Therefore, the show was going to be extra long and that we are all to be on our “worst behavior.” And trust me, some of the people in the crowd definitely were. There was one girl behind us that was just dying to get backstage and was doing everything in her willpower to do just that, if you know what I mean. How cool is it that they picked Lexington to be the place to film their DVD?? The crew had all of these handheld cameras in the crowd taping everyone. I am sure there will be a lot of people who watch the DVD that will recognize at least one person.

One of the coolest things that happened during the show though was someone from the crowd got to come up and play guitar with Keith as he sang! Evidentially a few people in the crowd all had the same sign. “Let her play your guitar” and were all pointing to this teenage girl. After Keith was done playing one of his songs, he said okay, if you want to play my guitar, then come up here. So this young girl comes up on stage and says her name was Leslie from Hazard. Keith asked her what she wanted to play and she said she knew the solo of one of his songs. So she played the lead guitar and he played backup guitar and sang. How cool is that???? I was amazed that he asked her to come up on stage and even more amazed that she was so freaking good! As she was walking off stage, Keith asked the crowd, “What the hell are they drinking in Hazard?” He was really amazed that she was so good; I am sure like the rest of us were too! All I can say is that I am glad I stayed to listen to Keith Urban; otherwise I definitely would have missed out. I can guarantee that even non-country fans would have liked tonight’s show!

Editor’s Note: The above recap was written by Julie Johnson for use on the Rupp Arena Blog. All photos shown were taken by house photographer Michael Wright. More photos will be posted up here in the next week.

THIS CONTEST HAS NOW ENDED – CHECK BACK ON MONDAY, APRIL 21 FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WINNER

Today marks the start of a contest for one lucky person to win a pair of tickets and a pair of concert T-shirts for Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood’s Love, Pain & the whole crazy Carnival Ride Tour coming to Rupp Arena on April 26th. This will be a great way for you to get tickets to the show if you missed out. The tickets we are giving away are in Section 22, Row PP. In case you didn’t know, that is located on the end risers in the bottom half of the lower arena. You will be only a number of rows away from the tip of the stage. Here is a map, since visuals are always better. Check it out!

You need to do the following in order to be able to win the tickets and shirts:

• Leave a comment on this post.
• Include in the comment your favorite Keith Urban and /or Carrie Underwood song.
• Be sure to leave the comment under the email address you want us to contact you at if you win.
• Sit back, wait patiently, and enjoy the ‘whole crazy carnival ride.’

Pretty simple huh? We will then run all the comments through our super-awesome-state of the art-crazy-monkey operated-random-post comment-picker-machine to select a winner. Since it is random, as long as you make sure to post your favorite song by either artist, then you have just as good of a chance as anyone else who enters. Please enter only once as all duplicate entries will be removed and passed along to the worst spam mail site we can find (only kidding, although they will be discarded).

The contest will be running from today, April 11th until Friday, April 18th at 12pm EST. The winner will be announced that following Monday, April 21. The contest will run for a week exactly, and then we will announce the winner almost a week before the concert (technically five days), so there is plenty of time to decide which of your friends or family is going to join you in your extra seat. Not only will you be in some great seats, but you will have concert shirts on your back, all courtesy of the Rupp Arena Blog. With our usual recap of the show, we’ll post a picture of the winners! Think about it, you can be super internet famous as the first Rupp Arena Blog contest winner!

Leave your comment with favorite song(s) below and good luck!

This last Saturday, the Lexington Horsemen played their second game of the season against the Pirates from Peoria, IL. The game was all about defense. It was great to see a game with such a low score in a sport that usually warrants scores of more than 100 for each team. The Horsemen are prized for their defense, and introduce the starters one at a time at the beginning of the game, when usually teams focus on their offensive starters. On Saturday though, the defenses on both teams were extremely tough which made for an interesting game with lots of surprises.

The game started out with the Horsemen leading 7 to 6 in the first quarter. The next quarter, the Pirates fought hard and scored two more touchdowns to the Horsemen’s one, making the score 14 to 20 going in to halftime. At this point of the game I happen to be sitting in a seat next to some people who were passing through Lexington and decided to catch a game. One of them asked “Aren’t these games supposed to have ridiculously high scores, with scoring back and forth all game?” It hadn’t really dawned on me until that point. This game was going at about the same pace as an NFL game, but with a much smaller field. That just pays tribute to the amazing defenses on both sides of the field. Although there was some scoring, it was nothing compared to an average AFL game. The scores stayed low in the third quarter as well, with the Horsemen getting 7 more points, and Peoria missing another extra point to get 6 more points, making it still a close game at 21 to 26. Unfortunately it was the fourth quarter where the Horsemen came undone. There were a few mistakes made, which is all Peoria needed to steal the game away. The Pirates won the game, 46 to 28. A lot of the Pirates success came from the outstanding job that number 7 on their team, Kofi Amoah did at Defensive Back and on special teams. It made one wonder if he was drinking the same water as another great Illinois defender, Brian Urlacher.

I made a panoramic of a series of photos I took from one of the corners on the floor. Click the images below to view the extremely LARGE version. Who knows, maybe you can pick yourself out in the crowd.

As mentioned during last week’s recap, I was working to get access to the floor to snap some more photos of the game. The Horsemen staff was more than accommodating, so I was able to take a whole slew of photos from the sidelines of the game. I went ahead and uploaded them all to our Flickr account and placed them in a Horsemen collection along with a few of the photos I snapped from last week. Here are some of the ones you can find in that collection.

The next home game for the Lexington Horsemen is May 10 against Mahoning Valley Thunder at 7:30. I will be field-side snapping some more pictures for the blog. Be sure to bring your game face and your cowbell and you may find your way into one of our game albums or even in the recap.

There will be a public memorial held for “Mr. Wildcat” Bill Keightley this Thursday, April 3rd. Starting at 10 o’clock AM and going to 4 o’clock PM, there will be a viewing in the Rupp Arena lobby at the High Street entrance. The memorial service will take place at 6 o’clock PM in Rupp Arena. For more details about the service, please visit the memorial page on Rupp Arena’s website.

The Rupp Arena Blog gives its best wishes to the Keightley family.

This past Saturday, the Lexington Horsemen had their opening game for the season against the Thunder Birds of Daytona Beach. Not only was it opening night, but it was Student night. Student tickets were only $5, beers were discounted, and even the Fillies were supporting their schools by wearing shirts from their respective universities. The Horsemen had some new players, a new coach, a new field, in a new league and were ready to set the bar high.

Right off the bat, or should I say the stitching on the ball, they managed to score two touchdowns in the first quarter while holding the Thunder Birds to no scores. While Daytona Beach did manage to score a touchdown in the second quarter (but missed the extra point), the Horsemen extended their lead by another touchdown by racking up another 13 points. The third quarter played much like the second. There were a lot of nice plays by both teams and some exceptional tackles. Daytona Beach scored another 6 points, but the Horsemen yet again extended their lead by getting 14 more points, now leading the game 41 to 12. As a nice dollop of icing on top of the cake, the Horsemen defense held Daytona Beach to no scores in the last quarter, while the offense grabbed another touchdown, closing the game with a 48 to 12 Horseman victory. Since I attended the game, so did my camera (although it didn’t eat nearly as many pretzels as I did). I was able to snap some photos from my seat that captured some of the atmosphere of the game. Here are some below. Enjoy!

For the next home game (this Saturday versus the Peoria Pirates) I plan to snap some shots from the floor which will allow for me to get a lot more action photos. Stay tuned for more Horsemen coverage here on the blog, and stop by our team page on the Rupp Arena website to view the schedule and ticket prices. Great start Horsemen! Good luck in the next home game this Saturday.

Gary Mullen and The Works delivered on the promise made in one of the songs they cover, “We Will Rock You.” For many, One Night of Queen was new territory. People were not sure of what to think of a live band, in a building that normally houses broadway, covering one of the most well-known bands of all time. If Queen were shoes, then they would be size 25 boots, and those are some big shoes to fill (see what I did there?). It is definitely not easy to live up to the legend of the band, or the lead singer Freddie Mercury, so you can understand why people were dipping their toe in the water to test it out. Not a single person in the crowd went home disappointed. If you came with low expectations then you were blown away, if you came with high expectations then you were still ‘WOW’ed.

I had the extreme pleasure of getting to sit down with and interview the lead singer of the show, Gary Mullen. He definitely had plenty of interesting things to say (as you could imagine) about cities he had been to before, shows they had done, and inspiration for various moves he does on stage. Listen in on the interview and get a little insight into Gary’s life.

Click to listen, or right click and select “Save As” to download.

Of course whenever I attend something, I bring along a camera that may as well be permanently grafted to my hand. I managed to snap quite a few shots from my seat which will give you a taste of what the show looked like. We also had a house photographer on hand who I am sure got some UH-MAY-ZING photos of the show from a variety of places around the theater. Those photos as well as mine will be uploaded to our Flickr account soon where you can browse through them. In the meantime, here are some photos I captured from the audience.

The show was amazing, and even though some people were not as energetic at first since they were taking it all in, everyone was on their feet begging for more by the end of the show. All the songs got a great reception, but some of the really popular Queen songs made the crowd go wild, such as We Are the Champions, Another One Bites the Dust, Fat Bottomed Girls, and Bohemian Rhapsody to name a few. Gary did an amazing job of keeping the audience involved throughout the night. He had stage-side chats with everyone between songs and got the audience to sing sections of some of the songs. The crowd returned the enthusiasm when they encored by stamping their feet then clapping. It was an intense moment to have the lights out with everyone stomping and clapping in unison, only to see a light shine on drummer sitting on his stool. As the crowd continued, the drummer, Jonathan Evans, started wailing on the drums, matching the crowd’s beat. The other band members all found their way back on stage with Gary holding an American flag as a cape. It truely was a powerful experience.

Lots of thanks and admiration goes out to Gary Mullen and The Works (Davie Brockett on guitar, Billy Moffat on bass guitar, Martin Campbell on keyboards, and Jonathan Evans on drums) for an amazing performance. They are picking up steam and getting more and more recognized and popular around the world. Rightly so since they seem to be the only group that can give a true tribute to one of the greatest bands of all time, Queen. Stay tuned for more photos from the show as they are linked to here, and added up to our Flickr site. Hopefully this won’t be the last time we see Gary and The Works, and maybe we can get more than one night of them some time in the future.

The National City Bank/KHSAA Boys Sweet Sixteen Tournament came to a close this past Saturday night in Rupp Arena, and we couldn’t have asked for a better game to end it all. Mason County and Holmes fought hard until the very end, and proved why each of them made it to the finals to begin with. Before the game began, a video montage was played on the four LED screen around the arena that recapped some of the highlights from the previous days as well as built hype and anticipation for the final game. Thanks to Joseph Lloyd, our Video Event Technician, I was able to get a copy of that montage and put it up on Youtube (and thus on this blog). Kick back and watch an excellent recap of this years Sweet 16.

I was able to attend the finals on Saturday night and of course took some pictures. Here are a couple below that you can have a look at. I must say that having watched Mason County play most of their games, they definitely deserved to win the whole thing. Their players are all extremely skilled, co-ordinated, and graceful. You rarely see that level of basketball played in high school, but they definitely raised the bar high. Here are a couple photos I took, one of which shows just a sampling of how crazy and packed the crowd was.

For more in-your-face action shots, we had one of our house photographers, James Crisp, on hand with a steady hand and quick shutter finger who captured some great action from the game as well as celebration and the group shot afterward. Have a look!

If you were able to go to any of the games Wednesday through Saturday and took some photos then we would love to see them. Please send them along to rupparenablog@gmail.com and we can add them to the fan section of our Flickr site.

The second day of the National City Bank/KHSAA Boys Sweet Sixteen Basketball Tournament concluded last night. There were some upsets, some great games overall, and an amazing game to top off the night. Here are the results from yesterday’s games. Click on the bracket to go to the official LIVE bracket that updates throughout the day during the tournament.

I attended both games last night and was especially excited and impressed with Mason County vs Elliot County. Both teams came into the game with excellent records from their regular season this year. Mason County got the lead and kept it by about 4 to 8 points up until half time, with Elliot County right on their tail. Shortly after the second half of the game started, Elliot County was able to make a few crucial plays and overtake Mason County for the lead. After that point, the game went back and worth with no team leading the other by more than about 6 points. Near the end, there was a 2 point difference and a clutch free-throw opportunity that could mean the difference between either team winning, or going into overtime. Both shots were made which put Mason County ahead by two possessions, and led to their victory. Below are a few photos I captured of the fans for both teams and the score board right before the free-throws.

James Crisp, one of our house photographers, was able to attend and capture photos from all the game. There are great photos of each match-up of the day. Take a look at some of the great shots James was able to get from the arena floor.

Stay tuned for for the rest of the tournaments. Each day I will be recapping what went on and likely attending a few of the games. There are also a few side articles/videos that may pop up either today or during the final day of the tournament, tomorrow.

Hundreds of goals and millions of sneaker marks later, the first day of the National City Bank/KHSAA Boys Sweet Sixteen Basketball Tournament has come to an end. There were some upsets, some close games, and some amazing moments that your average fan may not expect from high school players. Here are the results from todays games. Click on the bracket to go to the official LIVE bracket that updates throughout the day during the tournament.

I was lucky enough to be on the floor for the first game of the day, University Heights versus Lexington Catholic. There were plenty of great moments in each half. The first half it seemed like Lexington Catholic was going to run away with the game and win by a wide margin. The second half of the game, University Heights stormed back and gave Lexington Catholic a run for their money. Although Lex-Cath did end up snagging the victory, they definitely had to work for it every step of the way. Below are a few photos I captured from the intense game.

While I was only at the first game, our house photographer, James Crisp, was present for every one and delivered on some amazing photos from all the games that day. Once the whole tournament comes to an end then we will upload boatloads of photos from each game to our Flickr site for your viewing pleasure. In the meantime, take a look at some of the great shots James was able to get.

Stay tuned for for the rest of the tournaments. Each day I will be recapping what went on and likely attending a few of the games. There are also a few side articles/videos that may pop up here and there.

Each time around this year, Kentuckians grin wide since March means lots of basketball. More basketball is never a bad thing, in fact, too much basketball would be a problem most of us would look forward to. Of course there is the NCAA tournament, as well as the NIT for some teams, but nothing gets crazier at Rupp Arena than Sweet 16 week where the best high school teams from around Kentucky match wits and skill on the same planks of wood that UK Basketball plays on. Little did you know, a good amount of workers for those games are actually people from the offices of the Lexington Center.

Since most ushers, concession stand workers, and box office employees have other day jobs, high school games during the day put a bit of a strain on the amount of people available to work. To make up for a lack of man-power, nearly all the employees from the offices at the Lexington Center (which includes Rupp Arena, Lexington Convention Center, Shop at Lexington Center, and the Lexington Opera House) volunteer to help out in various ways around the arena. Paper pushers are turned into ticket sellers, marketing directors may find themselves as ushers, and secretaries may be selling you your hot dog and coke. It is ‘all hands on deck’ at Rupp Arena. The workers actually enjoy the change-of-pace and get to test drive other jobs they may not know about otherwise.

There are still three and a half days left of Sweet 16, so plenty of games for anyone to check out. When you are looking around, take note of the office workers abroad and take it easy on them if they seem a little new to things. It is because they are.

Staff pictured in photographs (in order): Matt Johnson (Graphic / Web Designer) working at the Box Office; Tom Hobermann (Operations Manager – Lexington Opera House) working as an usher; Jill Isham (Administrative Assistant) working at the Box Office.