Hi guys! Special post on this lovely Tuesday. TV Tuesday will be put on hold for a bit. Now first off, if you’re Canadian I really hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving! To everyone else, I hope you had a lovely Monday! 🙂 I’m back now from my long weekend and I’ve got some fun stuff in store!

I had the opportunity to see Shania Twain this past Sunday, and it was amazing! So let me get right to it, and describe the night!

Shania Twain
Rock This Country Tour
Saturday, October 11, 2015
Air Canada Centre- Toronto, Ontario

Growing up listening to Shania, I was quite excited to finally see her live. I also very excited to see her opening act, Gavin DeGraw, as he sings the theme song to my favourite show One Tree Hill. If you ever get the chance to see either of them, please do yourself a favour and do it, they are both so good live!

The show opens with Gavin Degraw, a pop/rock singer from New York sitting behind his piano, spotlights directly on him. He plays a few chords and opens with ‘Soldier’. It’s a very piano driven song, and Gavin puts all his energy into playing the piano. Next is ‘In Love With a Girl’, where midway through the song he gets up and walks to centre stage grabbing the mic there to sing. He then goes into a song called ‘Fire’, a fast-paced chanting sort of song that is very catchy. I need to add that Gavin sounds amazing live. He sounds just like he would when you hear his songs on the radio, so good! He then sings ‘Sweeter‘, and then throws it back to ‘Chariot’, one of my favourites. He’s back at the piano for only for a short while because he’s up and running through the crowd, giving high fives as he starts to sing ‘Best I Ever Had’. He runs up the aisle adjacent to me, and starts to sing ‘I Don’t Want To Be’ (the OTH theme song). The crowd has gotten so energized. I run down to the floor to graze a high five with Gavin. Almost everyone is on their feet as he makes it back to the stage to finish his set up.

I thought he would finish with ‘I Don’t Want To Be’, just because I think that’s his best-known song, although he’s gotten radio play for a lot of his songs, and yes I was wrong. As he makes his way back to the stage, and I back to my seat, he starts singing a cover of Bryan Adams’ ‘Heaven’, which slowly turns into ‘Not Over You’. I must say the crowd is full of energy. He asks everyone to pull out a flashlight, and quite a few shining phone flashlights light up the arena. As the song winds down he goes back to Adams’ ‘Heaven’ to close out. Everyone is cheering.

Now skip over, it’s 30 minutes later. The arena is singing Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’ when the lights dim, the song abruptly stops, and the strobe lights hit everyone in the face. Shania emerges from under the stage, and she rises about half way to the ceiling as she starts to sing ‘Rock This Country!’ The platform lowers her down so she can be centre stage to sing, bop, and dance around. She then starts to sing ‘Honey, I’m Home’, one of her classics. Although if I’m being honest here, she played a majority of her classic hit songs throughout the years. Her next hit she played was ‘You Win My Love’ where the screen behind her changes, although it changed for every song, to racing flags, and a camera so everyone can see her better. I also have to add that her outfit was so sparkly- I wanted it. She had black short-shorts on with a sparkly Rolling Stones tee under a black sparkly sweater, black knee-high socks with some cute black boots. What an outfit. As soon as the song finished the background changed into a pair of cowboy boots and ‘Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under’ is the next song. Man the energy level, after Gavin pumped everyone up was through the roof.

She then took a few moments to thank everyone for coming, and that she felt a close connection with Toronto, being a Southern Ontario girl herself. She also laughs a lot. I thought that was very humbling that she would say something and the crowd would go crazy, she’d laugh.

She then went on to say that we had to keep the fun going so she started to play ‘I Ain’t No Quitter’ it’s not one of my favourite songs, but I sang along anyway. While that song played the screen behind her had video of men with big toned chests, who were just throwing around a rope, or doing these cowboy jig type moves. It was a little odd, but funny at the same time. Next was ‘Love Gets Me Every Time’ where the arena went very purple and the background was the camera again. It really did help to see her better. This is also not another one of my favourites, but it was still fun to sing. ‘Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)’ was next, and that was lots of fun, because it’s a fun song. The background was like a Tetris game.

Shania then takes a moment to talk to someone in the crowd, pulls her up on stage and asks her what she wants to sing. They agree on ‘Your Still the One’ so Shania sings the first line, then let’s the girl sing the second, the whole crowd goes crazy once they finish. Before she let’s the girl go she says okay take a selfie with me, the girl didn’t even have to ask. As soon as the girl is safely back on the ground we get our stomp, clap on. She says she wants to get closer to us so she gets on this moving dolly and makes her way around the floor waving and singing ‘Any Man of Mine’ on my favs.

She then leaves the stage for the length of her song ‘Ka-ching’. Her band plays it instrumentally as the strobe lights throw blue and red lights at the audience.

Shania comes out in a blaze; literally fireballs shoot from the floor, as she re-emerges wearing all black, with a black cape to sing ‘I’m Gonna Getcha Good!’ After she takes the cape off and underneath she’s got a white sparkly sweater, and underneath that a sparkly ACDC tee. She calls out Gavin to back to the stage where the two sing her hit song ‘Party For Two’. The two of them are so great to watch, they get along so well and really play off each other. You can tell that the two don’t want to split, as this is the last night of the tour. They spend a good five minutes complimenting each other, which was really nice.

Next Shania finds her way onto a mechanical bull as Gavin leaves for good. Now this mechanical bull starts to lift her into the air as she starts to sing ‘Up!’. So far I must say her setlist is really good, and the show she’s performing is very entertaining, and a lot of thought has been put into making it for her fans. She not only is lifted but she flies through the crowd in a circle.

Once making it back to the stage it becomes an acoustic set for a bit. She plays ‘Today Is Your Day’, ‘No One Needs to Know’, and ‘You’re Still the One’ where the background curtain lifts and a night sky is portrayed, throwing the crowd into blue hues.

It’s time for her second break where she’s gone for an instrumental version of her song ‘Don’t’. She re-emerges from the bottom of the stage in all black again to play “From This Moment’. Then she looses the long robes and underneath she’s got a black strapless cocktail dress and thigh high red boots. The screen behind her has two leopards and it’s time for her to sing ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’. She ends it off with ‘(If You’re Not in it For Love) I’m Outta Here!’ But we all know she has to come out for an encore song, and she hasn’t sung her well-known song yet.

That’s when she comes back for that one last song ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman’ this gets everyone off their feet. She is dressed in this one piece that kinda looks like a bathing suit, but she pulls off really well, and of course her black cape is back! She performs, and thanks the crowd as an eruption of red confetti falls.

Truly a spectacular show, with a very talented performer, and fellow Canadian!

Photos to come next week!