Review: Lady A in Phoenix; ticket snafu leaves hundreds outside

But hearing the show is nothing like seeing it.

Which, if you were among the hundreds stuck in the long, slow-moving lines at the will-call windows, was an experience we missed.

Seems there was a snafu with tickets that were sent to thousands of the ticket-buyers to Saturday's nearly sold-outLady Antebellum show. Sam Hunt and Hunter Hayes were the openers.

Ak-Chin  amphitheater can accommodate 20,000 fans. Many ticketbuyers were notified that their tickets were invalid and would have to be replaced. You could print them at home or get replacements at the box office, they were told. 

Well, that didn't work out so well for a lot of folks, who found themselves arguing with box office employees overwhelmed by the last-minute deluge. Venue officials couldn't be reached before or after the show to comment, but from what I overheard from standing in the box office line, some folks were ill-prepared. Some brought their original tickets and receipts, which seemed to be a smoother transaction. Those who forgot their receipts had to do some creative finagling. One couple tried to call up the receipt on their cell phone to no avail; the reception was spotty at best.

My media tickets were also lost in the shuffle. After waiting 45 minutes in the will-call line, I was sent to the backstage entrance where a woman standing guard had no clue where any tickets were. While I waited for someone to figure it out, Sam Hunt went on stage. He sounded great, but it would have been nice to see him in action. It was sort of like listening to him on the CD with a ton of people screaming their heads off. Man, I wish I knew why they were screaming.

Most of us got our tickets settled 20 minutes into Hunter Hayes show just after 8 p.m. Hunt went on a 7. 

About Hayes: He's an amazing entertainer and a terrific instrumentalist. He plays the guitar like the lead in a rock band, all contorted emotion and passion. He has a handful of hit songs -- "I Want Crazy," "Somebody's Heartbreak," "Young and In Love," "Tattoo," "21," "Storm Warning," "Wanted" --  that carried him through his nearly hour set. The emotional highlight was when he sate at the piano for "Invisible," his breakout single. 

Lady A was in Tucson was last June, but their show in Phoenix was a world away from the sold-out show they played at the AVA at Casino del Sol. Part of the reason was that we saw them months before they released their album "747." Aside from that album's first single "Hey Bartender," they stuck pretty much to the script of hit songs.

On Saturday night they dug deep into the new material. They also had more room to play. The AVA is modeled after Ak-Chin, but the Phoenix amphitheater is four times larger. Which opened the door for the band to do some crazy fun stuff including setting up on a makeshift stage in the middle of the reserved seats and play to the back half of the venue. They sang a few songs including "One Great Mystery" and a moving cover of Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud." Charles Kelley, co-lead singer of the trio with Hillary Scott invited the crowd to light up their cellphone flashlights during "Love Don't Live Here," which created a surreal flickering that cast a swath of bright lights into the black night.

Lady A invited Hayes and Hunt on stage with them for a mean cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," which was fabulous. For those of us who missed him earlier in the evening we at least got a glimpse of Hunt, who I like to sum up as Nashville's version of Drake: A smooth vocalist who can rap and sing a sexy hot song with R&B sizzle. I'm told that during his set Saturday night he even slipped in a snippet of a Drake song in between one of his own.