They're not up on stage yet, because it's live, you see…

Lady A makes their first appearance on Saturday Night Live tomorrow night, and they are psyched! As Charles says, “It gives me chills to think there’s some teenage kid who stays up and goes, ‘Oh my God.  I’ve kind of heard of them.’”  I think because we have all grown up with that show and remember learning about new bands from it, a gig on SNL still means a lot to most bands.  Catch it at 11:30 on Channel 8 tomorrow.

This week Tony Bennett, age 85, put out a Duets CD (that has a bunch of country stars on there, like Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley).  The guy’s never had a number one CD in all the 50 million years he’s been making music.  Sales this week for his CD are looking pretty good (even though he did make some controversial remarks about 9/11 that might set him back a bit), but then…along comes Lady A!  It’s Week 2 for their new CD “Own the Night,” but they are neck in neck with Tony and may end up beating him to the #1 slot.  Meanwhile, a reminder that you can see Tony Bennett and Carrie Underwood sing on Tori Signal’s favorite show, “Blue Bloods” tonight at 10 on channel 6.

Congrats to Lady Antebellum, whose new CD “Own the Night” has debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 charts. It sold almost 350,000 copies, making it the highest selling country CD since Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now” last year sold a million in the first week. Looking at the all-genre Billboard 200, you’ll also see a few more names from country music: Brantley Gilbert holds the #4 spot, while George Strait sits at #7.

You can almost see the hatred (not).

It’s not always easy being in a band.  I was in one back in the 90s and we used to fight about the stupidest things.  Lady Antebellum seems like they’re always happy together, but that must not be the case.  They say that when they started butting heads a little too often recently, they actually hired a counselor to come in and teach them how to fight.  Well, actually they say it was a “communications specialist,” a mediator who taught them how to argue respectfully.  The band says they’re now closer than ever, so it must have worked.

Also, congrats in advance to them, as their new CD is setting up to sell over 300,000 copies in the first week, which will easily put them on top of both the country and the all-genre charts.

In case you missed this, Lady Antebellum sang the anthem at the Jets/Cowboys game last night, all as part of a 9/11 tribute.  The anthem, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, at a New York game.  That’s a pretty serious gig, and they did a great job:

Here are a few more parody songs from Lady Antebellum:

Here’s Lady Antebellum’s version of Jason Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem.” With a little help from Colt Ford they’ve turned it into a golf course anthem.

Yay for Hillary, whose drummer boyfriend proposed over the holiday weekend. The Lady A singer has been dating Chris Tyrell since they met a year ago when both of them were opening for Tim McGraw. Once the romance started, he dumped the band Love & Theft and became Lady Antebellum’s drummer for their tour last year. This Summer they’re touring separately, but when they got together for the holiday weekend, here’s what happened, according to Hillary:

“Chris proposed exactly the way I’ve always dreamed. Our families were close by, but it was just us out on a beautiful deck overlooking a lake in East Tennessee. We had just been on a hike and – in our workout clothes – he hit the knee! We feel so blessed by God that He sent us each other, and we are looking so forward to forever together!”

No date set yet. He’s 24, she’s 25.  He’s the guy she wrote “Just a Kiss” about.  He’s also quite cute, as you can see from the adorable picture above.