The Merkleys: One Republic

I surprised Nathan for Father's Day with One Republic tickets!!!

This was maybe a gift for me too.

Nathan has the BIGGEST man-crush on Ryan Tedder. It has yet to reach Brandon Flowers man-crush status, but after the concert he said that he thinks Ryan has moved to #2, knocking Matt Belamy to the #3 spot! WoooAAHhh!

(Should I be concerned that my husband is so in love with male musicians?)

For reals though, the show was amazing. We have been obsessed with their new album and they sang almost all our favorite songs from it! (Come on Ryan, BURNING BRIDGES!) I love that Ryan wasn't a huge talker. Nathan and I have been to many concerts over the course of our almost 8 years together. Some amazing. Some eh. But one thing I have noticed is that we both don't like when the artist spends more time talking and swearing for no reason and telling random stories on stage than they do actually singing. I love to hear stories behind songs or insights into the artists life, but some people talk FOREVER. (I'm talking about you, Matt Nathanson). One Republic was so good at telling just a few little stories, and playing a whole butt-load of music. They sang the majority of their new album, and they sang every one of their old hit songs. It's was awesome.

The show was at USANA amphitheater and I would like to pass my new knowledge of this place on to others. This was my second show here, but the last one was 4 years ago and I couldn't remember much about this venue. So here's what I now know.

-It is such a fun, summery place! Get lawn tickets. You aren't even that far and they are so much cheaper.

-Get there early to get a good lawn spot.

-Don't be the people who came to the show almost 2 hours late and asked us to scoot over so they could put their blanket there. I was pissed. And I let them know. And I don't even care. We got to the show 2 hours early to get that spot. Go sit at the top of the freaking hill you jerks. Best part? They didn't know any of the words to any of the songs and left halfway through the show. WHY DID YOU EVEN COME?

-This venue is perfect for a pregnant lady. In between acts, I could just lay down. It was awesome.

-They don't check your purse for food very hard like their website said they would. So I didn't even need to sneak candy in a tampon box.

-If you want to buy two small cups of water, it will cost you $8. And then don't have lids.

-LEAVE DURING THE ENCORE! I cannot stress this enough. I did this at the concert 4 years ago and we did it again this time. We could still hear the closing song from the parking lot, and it took us 1 minute to get out of the parking lot. There were 18,000 people at that show. I have friends who waited for 2 hours to get out of the parking lot. Seriously.

We loved being outside. It wasn't even too cold once the sun went down. We loved One Republic. The Script and American Authors both opened for them and they were amazing too. This was so much fun!