Quick Thursday news: Bucky Covington with Trace Adkins in Lowell tonight, and more...

By request, a bit of summertime. Bucky Covington enjoys a laugh at the KNCI Country in the Park concert in Sacramento; photo by the very talented Minnie, who shares more of her stunning images from the performance in her Photobucket gallery. Thanks again, Minnie!

Tonight's the night! The first of many winter and spring arena shows for Bucky Covington and his excellent band happens this evening at 7:30, when they take the stage at the Tsongas Arena for the first of two opening gigs on Trace Adkins' American Man tour. Final call for seats at Ticketmaster--it's safe to assume the page will be gone soon, but if your last minute plans include some time with Trace and Bucky, there might still be a TicketFast or will call seat waiting for you. Good luck and have a blast!

Here's a quick look at the rest of what's happening today:

Chart news: Bucky's single "It's Good to Be Us" is--you guessed it--a very strong #19 on the Mediabase weighted and Top 500 charts again today. (Slowly but surely, we'll get to Top 10--keep requesting, everyone! It's working.) The weekly charts are in, too--Bucky's latest is #20 with a bullet on both the Radio & Records Country Singles chart and Billboard's Hot Country Songs for the second straight week. Finally, Ken Barnes reports in his weekly album sales update at his Idol Chatter blog at USAToday.com that Bucky Covington, the CD, held on to last week's uptick in sales for a total of about 321,000 sold so far.

Upcoming shows: Tomorrow, 2/1, Bucky and the band open the show for Trace Adkins in in beautiful Johnstown, Pennsylvania ; you might still be able to snag a seat at the War Memorial Arena box office, or call 1-800-243-8499 for info, Tickets for almost all of the Dierks Bentley Throttle Wide Open dates are on sale even as we speak at Ticketmaster, of course. And for those of us who love those smaller-venue nightclub shows, that The Machine Shop date in Flint, MI on 2/22, is reason to cheer--could there be more of those rockin', intimate dates to come? Fingers crossed, and in the meantime, snag your seat for the Flint show now at www.etix.com. This one's sure to be a sell-out!

Rocky Covington and Bucky Covington share a microphone and a song at the Glass Cactus in Grapevine, Texas, 1/19; photo by the very kind AmaTexMom. Click the image to see more of her gallery at her site, Bucky Fan Pics. Thanks, AmaTexMom!

On the tube and around the net: The CMT Online Awards Nominee Report gets an 11:30 a.m. repeat today, and after a day off yesterday at GAC, Bucky gets four (!) video at-bats. "It's Good to Be Us" aired at 6:33 this morning, and you can see it again at about 2:33 and 8:46, as well as strolling the Golden Oak Ranch with Bucky via the clip for "A Different World" at 6:13.

While we're talking GAC, here's a heads-up about the upcoming rerun of their Riverfront Concert Series segment with Bucky and labelmates Sarah Buxton and Trent Tomlinson; mark your calendar for Friday, 2/8 at 10:30 p.m., with two repeats following. And looking way ahead, those CMT Online Awards will get an offline airing on CMT-TV on Tuesday, 2/12.

Online, there's a truly sweet "blast from the past photo of Bucky and Rocky Covington at The Covington Times this morning, along with a mention of the upcoming 2008 CMT Music Awards first-round nominations. Yes, the suspense is making us a little happy-crazy! Here's hoping Bucky's among the first-round nominees for a chance at the belt-buckle trophy--if he is, get ready for Voters Gone Wild...

Vote for Bucky: Today's the final day for the current segment of the "Idol Madness" playoffs at Idol Thoughts-- vote for Bucky here and make that lead even larger! The Country Weekly "Country's Hottest Bachelor" survey (note new link) still in progress online and in print, and "It's Good to Be Us" could use some love and affection at GAC's Top 20 Country Countdown and CMT's Top 20 Countdown. CMT's Pure Country Pure 12-Pack ballot was a bit mangled for much of the week--it worked for us yesterday, but who knows what the end results will be? Voting's over at 12-Pack for the week--we'll be back with more mouse-clicking tomorrow...

The "Idol Madness" playoffs at Idol Thoughts are still in progress (vote for Bucky here) , and the "help Bucky choose his next radio single" poll is winding down--put in a good word for your favorite track soon.

More later--have a terrific Thursday!