A concert on the Nuevo Vallarta beach - with Latin rock star Juanes

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - Practically every flat surface around Nuevo Vallarta and Puerto Vallarta was plastered with a poster contained the mug of Juanes, a Latin rock star who brings in fans from all over wherever he plays. This is a holiday weekend in Mexico and his concert was part of the celebrations.

Juanes - related to Antonio Banderas?

Juanes a huge star around the world, with his Unplugged tour getting five Grammy nominations. Our amiga Laura McCartney caught his act in Madrid. Yes, the Madrid, as in Madrid, Spain.

But back to the beach here.

The concert was held in an open area next to the Hardrock Hotel (yes, it's a hotel). It was supposed to start at 8 p.m. But, being Mexico, the crowd didn't even get very restive until about 9:30 p.m. when Juanes jumped up on stage and started a rockin' show.

The security guards said they expected a paid attendance of about 5,000. It was hard for Adm. Sylvia Fox and I to get a good look at the crowd. We attended the concert sitting on the beach side (read: Free) where we were joined by about a hundred gringos and vacationing Mexicanos.

And we had our own huge Jumbotron right in front of us. (Huge Jumbotron? Is that an oxymoron?)

Here's a link to Road Trip Zumba in which Sylvia talks about Juanes and the concert. She had a great time at the concert, even doing a few Zumba steps as she listened.

LINK: ROAD TRIP ZUMBA

At one point the staff who run the beach area where we were squatting came by and starting asking people if we were staying with them - generally being kind of obnoxious. After he hassled a couple of people (me included), a hired security guard (with a .45 caliber automatic on his hip) chatted with the staff fellow and he disappeared back into the building.

It was reminiscent of our days in San Diego when we would go by dinghy to Humphrey's By the Bay and listen to the concerts there. We heard the Righteous Brothers, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins - even Joan Baez, among others.

Here's a short video of some of the concert - from the beach perspective:

Getting to hear "It's 5 o'clock Somewhere" sung live by Alan Jackson

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Confession time: I like country and western music. Not all of it, certainly. But a lot of it, yes, absolutely. I love that so many country songs actually tell a little story. Ever hear Bubba Shot the Jukebox? Now there is a story.

And so when The Sacramento Bee newspaper asked me to to haul my butt out to Arco Arena to catch Alan Jackson's concert Thursday night - and write a review and snap some pictures - I jumped to go. Alan Jackson's music is my kind of country music. And it turned out, the Admiral's, too.

I checked when I got the assignment and saw that I have a half-dozen of his songs safely tucked in my ITunes library, including "It's 5 o'clock Somewhere." That song has particular meaning to me - it was first real song I learned to play on the ukulele. (I don't count Row, Row, Row Your Boat or Auld Lang Syne or Clementine in quite the same category.)

Alan Jackson

And I was not disappointed - he sang the It's 5 o'clock Somewhere towards the end of his concert, along with all the other songs I already have in my library.

"Anybody know what time it is?" he shouted. And that was it, we were all up and swaying and dancing to It's 5 o'clock Somewhere. Like most of his songs, the audience knew all the lyrics and sang along.

Here's a link to my review: Alan Jackson concert review

I lost count years ago of the events I've gone to and written about for newspapers and magazines. And at many of those, I carried a still camera, capturing a few (or more) images for news stories or features. Last week's Rally to Restore Sanity, being a good example, though Admiral Fox got most of the photos there. Here's a link to the rally story that appeared in the Sacramento News and Review: Rally Story

But I have never been a photo shooter at a big concert - and this was a first-class operation with professional photographers and cameras with huge lenses that looked so powerful that if Sarah Palin had one, she probably could see Russia from her house.

Me? Well I have a fantastic new video camera. But my still camera is well, a little puny.

Thursday night I was using my little Canon point and shoot, about one fourth the size of the hardware carried by the professionals.  But I was not going to waste a photo credential that let me stand a few feet from the country legend and his band, The Strayhorns.

Check out the guy in the gray ponytail below Alan Jackson

So when three equipment-laden photographers marched out of the stage wings, led by a security guard through the crowd, I tagged along and gamely shot pictures of Alan for an entire song. I'm sure it looked pretty silly. But silly or not, I was able to snap about six or eight shots that were pretty good - and one did make it into The Sacramento Bee with the review.

Take that, professional photographers.


The first warm-up band for Alan Jackson (just before Chris Young took the stage) was a nice surprise - and worth hearing all on its own.

The Band Perry, (Kimberly Perry and her two brothers, Neil and Reid) rocked the stage at Arco with a short set that got the place jumping and dancing and screaming an hour before the main event.

The band has had some hits and is one of those up-and-coming groups that you can tell are going to make it really big - and soon. Some of their songs will likely be finding their way onto my ITunes lists pretty soon.

Here's a link to their site: The Band Perry website

Neil, Kimberly and Reid Perry