Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Loretta Lynn at The Honeywell Center- Wabash, IN













Mrs. WYA! spotted the advertisement for Loretta Lynn's concert in Nuvo several months ago and decided that she and her Mom needed to see the legend at this venue that she'd never been to before. The concert was this past Sunday night and the Honeywell Center turned out to be quite impressive. It is right in downtown Wabash, was originally constructed in 1949 and you can see in the pictures what a great design it has. In 1994, an addition was constructed that included the 1500 seat theatre where we had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Lynn. While we had pretty close seats, there really didn't seem to be a bad seat in the house. They have a really great website where you can buy tickets that not only lets you pick the section but also the exact seat. We like an aisle seat so we really appreciated that feature. We also appreciated the free and ample parking.



Now that we've given praise to the venue, we have to gush about Loretta. She's in her early 70s, she mentioned that she recently had back surgery, and she was fighting a cold. And yet, her voice was amazing and she was a very entertaining performer. She told stories between songs and had a lively rapport with her band- frequently telling them "play anything boys, just start one and I'll try to hang on" and hang on she did. She also encouraged the crowd to just shout out what they wanted to hear and she'd sing it, making the concert feel like a cozy honky tonk jam session. At one point, during one of her gospel songs, there was no music and it was just her voice filling the room- WOW! This lady wasn't feeling 100% and her voice was still so powerful that it gave us goose bumps. She was fun, down to earth and, even though Mrs. WYA! was a little disappointed that she didn't do any songs from Van Lear Rose, she was the real deal, exemplifying talent and what a consummate professional is. The picture above is from her singing Coal Miners Daughter which brought down the house as her big finale. What a great evening. If you get a chance, go see one of her concerts.

1 comment:

nora leona said...

Oh, I'm so glad that Mrs WYA got to go! Thanks for the great review. I'm jealous!