Carrie Underwood visits State College on tour

Hope Martin, Editor in Chief

On February 10, Carrie Underwood performed at the Bryce Jordan Center for her “ The Denim & Rhinestones” tour. 

Country star Jimmie Allen opened for the concert. He performed a few songs including “Down Home,” “Make Me Want To,” and “Best Shot,” and ended his performance by ripping his shirt off. He then proceeded to throw it into the crowd. Sophomore Elyse Olson recalls this particular experience.

“I died laughing after noticing that the person who caught it was a 40-year-old-looking man. He looked so caught off guard when he caught it and proceeded to throw it over his shoulder to one of the many ecstatic fangirls,” Elyse said. 

Carrie took the stage by tearing away the curtain to reveal an even larger stage and a huge backdrop. On the backdrop was a moving screen showing off the intro to Carrie’s tour. This backdrop was used to show off a variety of interesting backgrounds that related to each song she sang. 

When Carrie came onto the stage, she was wearing bejeweled denim pants, bejeweled denim sleeveless jacket covered in beads, and a pink jeweled-up tank top. She wore that for her first few songs, then removed the jacket, revealing the sparkly pink tank top. This was only one of many different outfits she wore throughout the show. Everyone was fighting for a glimpse of Carrie. 

“The energy in the crowd was electric. Everyone was so incredibly pumped for Carrie to come out. There were people raising their phones hoping to get a good shot of the star coming on stage,” Elyse said. 

After the initial shock from the first few songs wore off, Carrie disappeared below stage and put on a fully shiny gold jumpsuit. It was long sleeved and the bottoms were short. What really took people for a spin though was the long tassels hanging off of the shoulders that went down to her knees.

It was in this shiny gold outfit that the stage pulled a stunt that no one was expecting. Real flames shot out from the sides of the runway part of the stage during Carrie’s song “Burn.” Fans in the general admission section could feel the heat of the fire from several feet away.  

  Another one of her shocking outfits was a pair of striped yoga pants and a black long sleeve top. To reveal this outfit, she rode out on a swing. Hanging from the swing were pink and purple fabrics and flowers. She then switched the swing for an orb made up of four bars crisscrossing. Behind the orbs was a large set of pink LED lit angel wings. 

“I didn’t realize that Carrie was not only a singer but also an acrobat,” Elyse said. 

One of Elyse’s personal favorite outfits was the silver ball gown that she wore near the end of the concert. 

“It was so pretty. The bottom of the dress looked like it was running water. It was absolutely beautiful,” she said.

Carrie ended her concert by thanking everyone. After that, it felt like the Hunger Games, trying to make it out of the parking lot.