After about nine years and three tries, I was finally able to do something I have been wanting to do for as long as I can remember this past Saturday night. Let's go all the way back to 2014. I had picked up tickets for 
Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and we weren't able to make the trip. I was kind of disappointed at the time, but I didn't let it bother me too much. Fast forward to 2022 and I noticed that James Taylor was coming back to a venue that was more local to us. I quickly grabbed some lawn seats and waited for the date to arrive.
Only to have it be postponed because James was dealing with laryngitis. They moved the date to August 26th, which thankfully wasn't a date that
It honestly couldn't have worked out more perfectly. We had a free weekend and the hot, muggy, rainy weather that we have been experiencing the last half of the summer finally broke and we had an amazing evening.
The concert was held at Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort which quite honestly is one of my favorite venues to see a show. It's only about 40 minutes from where we live and the facilities are quite nice. While I prefer to see indoor shows there, the outdoor area is pretty nice too.
Just behind the stage in the above photos is the hotel portion of the casino. I have only ever stayed in this hotel once (since it is so close to home). I wouldn't really even consider it staying in the hotel either. I was there for a bachelor party and I spent most of my night wandering around the gaming floor until morning arrived and my father in law bought a few of us breakfast.
Just past the beer, merchandise, security, and ticket tents in this photo is the casino part of the resort. It is probably one of the biggest ones I have ever been to shy of Vegas. It's pretty impressive for being in Mt. Pleasant, MI. The Chippewa Indian tribe has put a big investment into this facility and the surrounding community.
As you might imagine, there were a lot of older people at this concert. Given the fact that James Taylor was the first artist to ever sign to Paul Mcartney and George Harrison's newly formed Apple Records back in 1968, it is safe to say he has gained a lot of fans over the years.
Given the fact that half of the outdoor venue is seats and half is a lawn covered hill, I joked to
We never had to help anyone up, but every time we watched one of them sit down or stand up from their blanket on the hill, we wondered if an ambulance was going to need to be called.
I shouldn't joke really, one day that is probably going to be us.
James' show consisted of two sets along with an encore that lasted about two and a half hours. He has so many songs in his catalog that it would be hard to cover them all, but he made sure to include most of them along with some other lesser known gems in his set list.
Thankfully, James pretty much follows the same set list for most of his shows these days, so I was able to determine that we could safely leave after the midway point of the second set without us missing any must hear songs for me.
It would appear Soaring Eagle has learned a few lessons over the years. When I first started attending outdoor concerts here, they didn't have these screens to offer better views to the spectators. Heck, when I started attending shows here, they didn't even have the bleachers that you see in the photo above.
It was just the lawn seats or the chairs in front of the stage.
James put on a really great show. He sang the songs along with his all star band and he told some really funny stories in between them. Although it was outdoors to such a huge crowd, it still felt like a very intimate setting.
I do have to admit that even though he sounded pretty great, you can tell that age is catching up with him. He was struggling to hit some of the notes and some of the lines felt a little forced or clipped.
I'm not complaining. I hope I sound that good when I am 75 years old. He can still play the guitar like a mother and there was a point after playing "Steamroller" that he put his guitar down on the stage and slowly walked away from it after shredding the crap out of it.
It was funny.
I was actually a bit surprised at how full the venue was. Given the fact that it had been rescheduled once before, I thought it might not be a full house. I was quite wrong. We had to wait in traffic just to get a parking spot and then getting through security and the ticket area took another twenty minutes or so.
The lawn seats were already full by the time we got there, so we had to sit up towards the top of the hill. It never fails that
I don't see the point of spending $36 for a ticket if you are just going to stand around talking and drinking. It makes the experience for everyone so much less enjoyable.
Of course we had several of those sorts of people all around us. The people directly in front of us stood the whole time. There was a point where the lady next to us asked my wife if she wanted her to ask the guy to sit down.
Then we had a couple of people just behind us that were talking non-stop. Other concert goers shushed them several times, but they were totally oblivious.
I looked down at the sea of people quietly sitting on the lawn in front of us enjoying the show and I envied them. I guess that is what we get for not arriving two hours before the show starts. The problem with that is then you just sit there with nothing else to do but drink.
Then, when you drink for two hours before a show, you find yourself having to use the restroom all through the show. It's a catch 22 I guess.
I took a walk during the last song before the intermission and went to the "merch" table to buy a sweatshirt. I had seen other people wearing them, and I thought they looked pretty cool. When I got to the table, I discovered that they were $75 USD a piece. That was a little too steep for me, so I settled for a $40 USD T-Shirt. Which quite honestly is still pretty expensive, but not as bad as the sweatshirt.
By the time the second set started, night was fully upon us, the half moon was high in the sky and the sun was gone for the day.
It got downright chilly and pictures were harder to take due to the lack of light plus our distance from the stage. This backdrop was pretty neat, but the photo doesn't really do it justice since it turned out so blurry.
Knowing we were probably going to leave at the midway point through the second set, we picked up our blanket and just stood for the whole second set. With the temp dropping to the mid forty degree range,
We stayed for most of "Fire and Rain" and then we started making our way to the exit. I kind of wish he had played "Handyman", but that isn't on any of the set lists I have seen. As I said, he has such a huge number of hits, that it has to be hard to decide which ones to include.
One of the cool parts of the show was the fact that one of his sons is part of the all star band as a backup singer. You could hear the pride in his voice as he introduced him.
James is a great story teller with lots of funny tales and awesome one liners he throws out every now and then.
I think it would be cool to see him in a smaller venue, but I'm not sorry we came to see him here. It's another artist I can cross off my bucket list!
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or