Pam’s Recap: Danny Gokey at Joe’s Bar (Chicago, IL)

I never expected to squeeze in another incredible Danny performance before HoChunk Casino; but thanks to my fellow Gokeyholic friends Jenruditys and Michelle (Mkeforyou) I shared in their ticket winnings, and was off to Chicago.

A group of 6 of us (another fan, Christy Stoffel; a member of Faith Builders had also won tickets) met up downtown Milgokey and piled into Jen’s SUV to head to Chi- town. As things go, we were about 45 min. late, so ran into rush hour traffic in Chicago (which is always brutal). Jen, Karen, Val, Christy and I drove down to meet Michelle (already in Chicago for work shmoozing clients) who held a place in the hot sun for us. We were really worried about arriving late, but it turns out Chicago people don’t stand in line for 10 hours like Milwaukee people; even on a beautiful spring day with temps in the 80′s!. The place really didn’t fill up until Danny came on. I have to admit, we were a little worried it would be a poor showing because so few came early. It was packed (1000 capacity; but they had the upper level blocked off) by the time he played. Luckily, all the ihearties were right up in front.

Not too sure about the Chicago country radio people .
They had no idea how many people would be there when we asked. We also asked them when they would put Danny on their playlist (they have added him but he’s not on the playlist) and they said “We’ll see how he does tonight”. What the heck??

The organ donor promotion had a table; if you showed your driver’s license you received a free signed CD if you had an organ donation sticker . We also received bracelets; they supposedly picked people by the bracelets to meet and greet before; but none of us were.

The bar played more modern country music. There were a few Cowboy hats, but not many. The crowd was quite mixed, as you can see from the Chicago Now pics. Mostly women of course, but plenty of guys, and all different ages. I would say it was a younger crowd than Turner Hall because there were no kids and parents there. It was fun to have a little testosterone in our group: Jan’s young son and Cheryl’s husband Ron, who is such a sweetheart- he was clearly there for his wife; he hung out at the sports bar area most of the time, but did bring us a round of “cold drinks” ,lol. It was great to meet Cheryl (upsnodowns) too, who was just as friendly, sweet and cute as I thought she would be. Tracy recognized Jan and found our group, and got a great spot up front in the process- really fun to meet her!

We had dinner before entering, and saw Brandon fly by on his cell phone, but he ignored our pleas for attention .
He had a hair cut and looked very cute.

Gina Glocksen came on first for about 30-40 minutes; sang a couple of her own songs and a few covers, including U2 (my favorite of hers). She was definitely more rock than country. She was very sweet and also said Danny was “not bad to look at” so she gets brownie points.

Danny burst on to the stage with Like That’s A Bad Thing. I think his set was identical to the Orlando HOB. He sang his album plus WHTM, Back at One, Trouble, PYT/Life Is a Highway medley to end. He pulled a girl up as usual who had a sign saying “I want a Danny Gokey kiss for my 25th birthday”. He said he didn’t give kisses, but she could kiss him, which she did, on the cheek! She was a bold “subject” and when he passed her around to Brandon and Greg to sing to her she kept trying to come back to Danny, and also tried to sit on his lap, lol, and get off the stool and follow him around. He is so good at this; he gently directed her back to the stool each time and avoided the lap sitting with much charm and grace.

Like the HOB, his stage presence was fantastic; I think he has better stage presence and audience rapport than so many established stars. And he was in fine voice- he hit all the difficult notes and sounded absolutely stunning on his little reprise of “Aint No Mountain Higher” after Gregg sang it (Greg is great, but when Danny sang it, wow).

And Danny many have not enjoyed the heat (he had a towel in his hands for most of the performance to mop his brow), but I gotta say the view from the front now that it is T shirt weather was fantastic As photogenic as he his, he just looks even hotter in person.

The audience was a good one; but Danny told us after that the HOB one was his favorite so far; they were “very hyper” according to him! That explains Danny- he has boundless energy; all over the stage and still cheerful at the signing after.

He introduced IWNSGB as the next single (quelling any speculation about Crazy Not To we were voicing).

As already noted; there was an additional band member who played fiddle, mandolin, steel guitar. Another new development was that Joanna Coton; one of the writers of Be Somebody came on stage and sang with Danny for that number. That was Joe’s favorite (Jan’s son), and he was also able to grab Danny’s hand during it .

They did a signing after. No photos with Danny, although Joe managed his bromance pic, thanks to his mother’s intervention (Awww). I had to get a couple hugs from Joe, hoping for some Gokey aura to rub off, lol, and also just cuz he was so dang sweet (My son is Joe also and reminded me of him). I bought a CD for him to sign and the security beef was rushing us through the line . I couldn’t get it open so I just told Danny to forget it because I didn’t want to hold up the line. Such a sweetheart, he took it from me, saying “I’ll open it for you”, which he did, they signed the inner CD.
We talked briefly, I got my push in for Erika (he said to say Hi to her from him <3) then we were out of there.

Four hours of sleep before a 10 hour Friday work day; but always worth it when Danny is involved

Pam (@PJGvet)

Owlki note: “Hi” received and appreciated, love. Thanks!