Hi All- Apologies for the late recap. Real life and work beckoned. Am so proud of David and band for being such great professional musicians. This recession has claimed many victims, and I know it is not lost that David Cook has sold incredibly well despite (go CJT folks).

The Cook Intelligence Agency has done a mighty fine job of recapping concerts (applause). In the interest of brevity (which I didn't achieve), I'll highlight new things. The overarching theme of my 3-day adventure is that I admire David for his music, but also for his kindness. And the bulk of his true fans do emulate him in this regard. I met some of the nicest, kindest and passionate people! That's the 98%. To the 2% bad apples... well, we have never seen David publicly hate or be mean to anyone. Even when he had just cause. Let's make David as proud of us, as we are of him. No hating at these concerts ladies. Just sayin.

•Welcome Monty- Wow, much love to Monty. He really stepped in and honestly, I doubt a new or casual fan noticed the difference. Monty, generally hangs back behind Dave and tries to blend in. All the guys seem to have a fun, respectful relationship. I like that.

•Concert Variety- I had a nice mix of concerts. Birchmere was a small seated venue (300 ppl?). While Starland (2K) and Keswick (1K) were larger. It was cool to see how the set up differed. Birch had the baby lights that I recall from the early youtube concerts. Starland and Keswick had the massive light shows which was kind of cool. I'm really intrigued by the efficiency of the stage set up and process. Go crew!

•Sitting vs. Standing (Birchmere/Keswick)- This horse has been kicked, so all I'll say is that hopefully as David's celebrity grows and mgmt has a better sense of his demographic this 'situation' can be better addressed. I felt horrible about blocking people's views as I practiced my best rock moves and squees for David. The things I do for David.

•I LOVE that David is SO SENSITIVE to his audience. The fact that he called out the guards b/c their backs were to him in Keswick was hilarious. He really does like/need affirmation from the crowd. We had him on cue. We would scream, and David smiled. We'd scream again, and he'd look at us with adorable puppy eyes. We'd scream again, and he'd step back to take it all in. If we were really lucky, he'd turn the mike around and let us own the moment (snark, probably b/c we were screaming into his aud mic). Maybe he's not always like this, and this is just a rough patch, but he seemed to really 'need' the love (which we happily gave). I could be a$$-talking, but that's the impression I got.

•Keswick- Ok DWOPers, I know I go on and on about Lie. It's my favorite. So to get the perfect Lie on my last night was epic. He achieved the trifecta:
1. David takes two steps back from mike.
2. Brian kills the houselights (Umm.. did anyone notice that the Shooting Star "darkness" happened at Starland and Keswick? Am such a lucky girl!) and
3. David sings chorus a capella with silence from the crowd. SSQQUUEEEEE! Thank you David. That made my week/month/heck maybe even the best musical moment of my life!

•Starland- I was really struck when David acknowledged that the Starland concert and experience gave him a much needed morale boost. So I'm thrilled the New Englanders gave him an even better experience at Foxwoods. Great, now I get to be jealous of North Hampton and Foxwoods. grrr.

•Starland- The shirt. I posted my comments already. Starland was GA, and I was lucky enough to buy a pass from a DCOer that got me front of line privileges (Dave goodness again!) I showed up at 5pm and ended up on the 4th row (OMG). But, due to work commitments, I had been up since 4am and was exhausted. Hot Chell Rae was great (did they remind anyone else of a baby Ryan Star)? But, I was ready to pass out by the time David came on. Well, when he walked onstage with that damn shirt, I was rejuvenated. And did the snaps 'magically' come undone throughout the night or was I delirious. I spent most of the night distracted trying to zoom in to get BOTH tats in the frame. Nice.

• Met Andy and Kyle out by the buses at Birchmere. Sweet. A very bold fan asked Andy about Joey's departure. I would NEVER bring that up to them in a open forum, but I was for sure going to listen in. Andy said, "yea, we all ALL miss Joey". Then he made a really innocuous statement which I didn't quite understand, but I think the gist of it was, everything happens for a reason. He looked sad when he talked about it, and I think that sentiment was sincere.

•Not sure if this is new, but Andy has started to venture over to Neal's side quite a bit and they jam a little. I like this. I think it helps to fill some of the void of Jumpin Joey. Each member brings something so different. Neal is a guitar machine. Turn him in on, fill him with Jack Daniels and let him shred. There's no interaction, laughing or jokes, just serious, totally rad Neal (except when someone says something funny on the private mics; he laughs heartily then). Andy is too cute with the hair in his eyes as he's playing. He typically doesn't smile or emote either, but when he does, his smile is absolutely electric. Now Kyle is my kinda dude. He is ripping those drums. He is always going beserk. I do love that the boys 'playfully' ignore David during banter. It's so funny.

•The Line- I posted after having a tough work week that maybe I'd reward myself and take in Birchmere. Well, a DCOer saw my post, contacted me and the rest is history. To pay it forward for them offering the extra ticket, I swallowed my pride and offered to wait in line for 4 hours to get a good spot for my newfound DCO friends. Let me just say, I NEVER stand in line. Well, fortunately, it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I met so many cool die hard DC fans. I'm still growing in my fandom so they took me under their wings and shared great tour stories, pictures and insider info. Once my new friends showed up, I checked into my hotel and freshened up for the most magical concert experience ever.

•Finally, I'm not a lucky person. I've never won anything in my life and I generally have to work my tail off to get anything I want. For some reason, as far as David is concerned, I'm a lucky girl. How else do you explain 3rd, 1st, 4th and 1st row seats at his concerts? Geez. Thank you seat fairies and thank you David Cook.

Sorry this was so long. Am a detail girl... cuz that's where you find the devil. Thanks for reading!