This past Thursday a really special show came to the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, CT as winners of The Voice and American Idol, Danielle Bradbery and Scotty McCreery, respectively, put on a benefit show for the 12.14 Foundation, for which Scotty is a the National Goodwill Ambassador. The Foundation’s goal is to build programs, and ultimately, a landmark performing arts center in Newtown to help not just those from Newtown, but anyone who is seeking healing and positive change. Before the show even started over $60,000 was set to be donated from the show’s proceeds.
Performing in front of a simple, yet elegant, backdrop of her name written in script, Danielle Bradbery opened the show with the upbeat ‘Yelling From the Rooftops.’ Her very talented band played some classic guitar riffs, including ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ and ‘More Than a Feeling’ before transitioning into ‘Endless Summer’ before playing her current single ‘Young in America’ and a cover of Paramore’s ‘Ain’t it Fun.’ Following this she performed ‘Talk about Love’ which stood out to me as one of the best songs in her set. Stating that it was a song that makes her want to dance, Danielle had everyone in the audience to get up and dance with her as she did an awesome cover of Katy Perry’s ‘Roar.’
The songstress followed these up with ‘Wild Boy’ and ‘My Day.’ Danielle even stopped to talk about the audition process for The Voice before covering Carrie Underwood’s ‘So Small’ which was the song that punched her “red ticket,” as she called it, to go audition in front of the celebrity judges. Throughout the whole set her incredible vocal abilities were on display, but they particularly stood out on this one. During the introduction she sounded a lot like Carrie Underwood before making it her own.
Bradbery closed out the set with ‘The Heart of Dixie,’ her biggest hit to date, and my personal favorite song of hers, ‘Never Like This.’ I’ve seen Danielle before, including recently in the Mohegan Sun Wolf Den, and this time, just as much as in the past, she impressed me with her poise and how she commands the stage. Watching her it is easy to forget that she just turned 18 over the summer as she a comfort level well beyond her years. If you want to check her out live, she’s performing this Thursday, December 11th in Lewiston, ME.
After a quick break Scotty McCreery came out to perform for a very excited crowd. He opened with ‘Now,’ which was a great song to open with and set the tone for an awesome performance. Scotty was extremely active throughout his whole set. His love, and skills, for baseball were evident as he slid from side to side of the stage like he was taking a lead off first. When he would “throw” lyrics out to the crowd for us to sing back, he would wind up like he was trying to reach home plate from deep center field.
After ‘Can You Feel It’ and ‘Water Tower Town,’ he took some time to tell his story of auditioning for American Idol, which was interesting with Danielle telling her story earlier in the night. McCreery planned on going to college and moving to Nashville afterwards but he ended up auditioning at the age of 16, and the rest they say, is history. He then played ‘I Love You This Big’ his song from the American Idol finale and his first single. He followed this up with his groovy song ‘Blue Jean Baby.’ The lights then went down and when they came back up Scotty was standing up on the drum riser with drum sticks and banged on the cymbal for the opening of Garth Brooks’ classic ‘Papa Loved Mama.’ It was an awesome cover which he and the band clearly had a lot of fun with. The crowd loved when Scotty threw the drum sticks into the audience!
After covering Garth, who Scotty had seen live just a couple weeks before this show, Scotty played ‘Feel Good Summer Song,’ which is a song is really well written and showed off the talent of Scotty’s band members. In what I thought was a really cool and humble move, Scotty left the stage during a part with no vocals so all of the attention could be on the talented musicians. At the conclusion of the song, girls in the audience began running to the stage as one of the band members pulled out a ukuele and began playing ‘Write My Number on Your Hand.’ McCreery pulled out a sharpie and wrote a number on the hands of MANY of the girls who came up to the stage. It was one of the coolest and most creative things I’ve seen an artist do. The number was projected on the screen at the end and if you call it you get a recorded message from Scotty thanking you for coming to the show. Up next was my favorite song McCreery has recorded to date, ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Your Friend.’
Scotty then broke out the very popular ‘The Trouble With Girls.’ Throughout the entire performance giant video screen showed various graphics, videos, etc. to go along with each song and during ‘The Trouble With Girls,’ clips from the music video were shown. What’s cool about this video in particular is that it was filmed at Garner Magnet High School where McCreery had gone prior to going on American Idol.
He then took some time to speak about the 12.14 Foundation and some more about American Idol. Scotty is absolutely hilarious and his comfort on stage was evident as he made jokes about how much of a culture shock he experienced going from Garner, North Carolina to Hollywood and having Lada Gaga as a mentor on Idol. One that really cracked me up was when he was talking about ordering a sweet tea during ‘Hollywood Week’ on Idol. In his deep, southern, voice he goes “You know how they say if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… Well this wasn’t a duck.” Scotty then did another awesome cover, this time George Strait’s ‘Check Yes Or No.’
The set slowed down as they played ‘The Dash.’ If you haven’t seen the music video for the song I suggest you check it out. The song is about the legacy you leave on Earth and the video is dedicated to U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Andrew Carpenter, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2011. Lance Cpl. Carpenter was married to Scotty’s bassist’s cousin when he was killed in the line of duty with his wife being pregnant at the time of his death. Clips from the video, which was released this past Veteran’s Day as a tribute, played on the screen during the song before the lights went down and a simple memorial message was shown on the screen. The whole thing was very emotional and a genuinely awesome moment.
Scotty talked about how in the process of putting together a 12 song album you hear thousands of songs. ‘Carolina Moon’ he said stood out to him as a “stone cold country song,” and after hearing it I’d have to agree with his assessment.
Throughout the night Scotty talked about his desire to stay true to his country roots, even on a pop television show. He paid tribute to some of the artists he grew up listening to by playing short versions of various classic country songs including ‘Hey, Good Lookin’,’ ‘Folsom Prison Blues,’ ‘That’s Alright Mama’ and ‘Mountain Music’ while a video montage of these artists and other legends played on the screens. During Elvis cover Scotty showed off his moves, shaking his hips in the King’s legendary fashion.
The set was rounded out with ‘Walk In The Country’ and ‘Buzzin’,’ after which the band and Scotty left the stage. The crowd roared encouraging the band to come back out for an encore. After a couple minutes they emerged and played ‘Forget to Forget You’ which highlighted Scotty’s vocals as well as those of his band who joined him for some harmonies. recently certified as Platinum, ‘See You Tonight.’
The set ended with ‘Feelin’ It,’ Scotty’s current single. It was one of the highlights of the show for me as giant beach balls were thrown out into the crowd and batted around. Despite the cold weather outside, in that moment, with the summery song and beachballs, it felt like it was July. Scotty ended the night by advising the crowd to “Keep it Country” before leaving the stage to a tremendous applause.
I went into the show with high expectations and was not disappointed. Obviously both artists were going to be talented vocally, given the TV competitions they’ve won, but they both really impressed me with their connections to the audience and the quality of the show they put on. If you haven’t seen them I definitely recommend that you check them out if you get the chance.
Thank you to both artists for supporting such a worth-while cause! To learn a little more about the Foundation you can check out an interview NECM had with Scotty before the show here. You can also text CTKIDS to 80077 to make a $10 donation to the 12.14 Foundation.
You can follow Scotty on Twitter, Facebook, and at his official website.
Don’t forget to keep updated with Danielle on Twitter, Facebook, and her website.