To my pleasant surprise, I had a great time at my first ever country music concert, Friday at the Shoreline Amphitheater.

Frankly, I didn’t even know the singers before I went, but I won’t soon forget the names of Brad Paisley, Kellie Pickler, Jack Ingram & Taylor Swift.

My top impressions and thoughts:

• Country music fans are awesome. By awesome, I mean totally engaged in the concert, belting out with feeling the lyrics of every song, just chilling out for an evening of great tunes.
• Country music fans are awesome. By awesome, I mean that the women . . . are, uh . . . attractive.
• Taylor Swift, who opened the show, is going to be huge. She’s young (born in 1989, yikes!), gorgeous and composes and sings great. I hope she can keep her head screwed on straight and keep creating. In addition to her official Web site, check out Taylor’s MySpace page. She’s back in town on June 1 at the Rodeo Club, and I’m going to try to catch her performance.

• Asians abound in the Silicon Valley — but not at Shoreline Friday night! I didn’t see a single other Asian dude and saw only a mere handful of Asian women.
• Kellie Pickler . . . needs to think about the brand of her. I don’t watch “American Idol,” but I understand that Kellie had some . . . er, enhancements made to her chest area post-Idol. Apparently, she’s not shy about sharing them. During a segment of Brad Paisley’s performance, a camera backstage showed Kellie playing strip poker with a band member. She lost a hand, literally lost her shirt (stripped it off) and displayed her enhancements on camera, albeit covered by her bra. The audience went nuts.
• Brad Paisley put on a great show. Not having known any of the singers, I didn’t see how the performances of Taylor, Jack Ingram & Kellie could be topped, but Brad Paisley unequivocally was the headliner. I’ve already downloaded his most recent album from iTunes.

Thanks for the invite, JI!