On Friday, October 21, 2016 my siblings and I attended a Brad Paisley concert at UCLA. Paisley made a visit to the UCLA campus as part of his second annual “Country Nation College Tour.” Friday was the first time that Paisley has played at UCLA and his first performance in LA since June 2015. This college tour began in Orlando, Florida, and ended Friday at UCLA.

            Paisley’s opening act was Orange County local, Brett Young. During the set, Young spoke to the audience about relationships like he was talking to a friend. He shared his own personal memories of awful breakups. The topic of breaking up with someone is very popular throughout his six-song EP called “Brett Young.” His EP came out in February 2016.

            Paisley opened up his show with his hit song “Crushin’ It.” The upbeat song began with the audio of a new beer can being cracked opened as he begins having a good time after a long work week. Throughout the concert, Paisley’s most popular songs such as “Water” from his 2009 “American Saturday Night” album and “Old Alabama” from his 2011 “This is Country Music” album played loud under a warm night as people danced in the audience.

            Paisley’s music about college life helped to keep the audience entertained. Early in the concert he described UCLA as a pretty school with a great location and with some of the best looking people. He also revealed to the audience he would have likely not been accepted into the university as he graduated from Belmont University with a only 2.5 GPA. Then he sang his song “Letter to me,” a song written to his 17 year old self. This song explained the importance of seeing the bigger picture in life.

            After taking some selfies on some students’ phones and singing into their cameras, Paisley ended his show with his song “Alcohol,” a funny song about the results of drinking from alcohol’s viewpoint. It was a great night and I was happy to attend this free show with my sister AKA Brad Paisley’s #2 fan.