Waylon’s Picks for Top 5 Concert Events of 2016

Looking back on 2016, it seems as though the true highlights came in the form of the outstanding concert events one could enjoy within a reasonable radius of Western Colorado. Here are my picks for the Top 5 concert events of 2016.

For the purpose of this list, I'm going to include shows I attended within an eight-hour drive of Grand Junction. These locations would include Denver, Loveland, Englewood, and even Las Vegas.

It just so happens one concert event made the list twice. I loved seeing Reba McEntire and Brooks & Dunn's residency gig in Las Vegas so much I went twice. The first trip was in June, and then again in late November.

Keith Urban's Ripcord tour featuring Maren Morris and Brett Eldredge was nothing short of fantastic. Keith paused for a moment to take a few pictures with my concert companions, Bob and Nancy.

The "Three For the Hall" tour at Redrocks featured Cheap Trick, Joan Jett, and my all-time favorite band, Heart. Any show with Heart is magnificent. In this case, though, the concert lost a few points due to the typhoon or whatever that was that hit Redrocks right in mid-show causing a two-hour delay.

Country Jam 2016 was one of the top three best out of the festival's 25-year history. With that in mind, though, I chose to narrow the festival down to what I considered to be the best performer, namely Brad Paisley. The crew at the station had the pleasure of sitting on stage at our own private bar during Paisley's show.

In order, my picks for the top five concerts of 2016 are:

5. Reba McEntire and Brooks & Dunn in Las Vegas - November show

4. Brad Paisley at Country Jam

3. Heart at Redrocks

2. Reba McEntire and Brooks and Dunn in Las Vegas - June show

1. Keith Urban Ripcord World Tour

There you have them, my top five concerts for 2016. Hopefully, you had the chance to catch a handful of great shows, too. Concert season isn't far away. Country Jam will be here before you know it, and we'll all be hard at work at building a new list for 2017.