So as many of you know Gmail shut me out a couple times this week for "overusing the system" so I couldn't send my CMA Fest update via the regular platform. So here ya go!
Day 7-9
On Sunday I had "church” at Riverfront with Matthew West & Ricky Skaggs --it’s ok if you don’t know who Ricky is. He’s sort of a big deal but I don't know much about him.
After that I bumped into a very very small performance by a new duo that I met on Monday at Lee Brice & Jerrod Niemann's fan club party. The group is called American Young. They called me out in the crowd and made me come sit down to watch. At the end of it after chatting for a while the female of the pair, Heidi, insisted on connecting with me via Twitter. So now we are friends with means we're like totally bff's and will have sleepovers, get regular mani-pedis, braid each others hair...just kidding. But it helps to show how down to earth almost all of these musicians are. They are about as average as you and me and I love it!
On another note, I can't convey the complete respect I have for songwriters right now so it will either have to come in a blog or I'll talk more about it next year. But I got to meet the man who wrote some of my favorite songs (Manders he wrote "Can't Shake You" and "Carolina Rose" performed by Gloriana and "In My Daughter's Eyes" performed by Martina). I got his autograph but totally failed to get a photo with him. I had my camera around my neck and everything but I was trying to play it cool. However, I didn't play it cool when I got this photo with Dave Haywood from Lady Antebellum. Dave was just finishing up a ping pong match with Charles as a fundraiser during the festival.
I finally “met” Chris Young after his mom Becky had been telling me since Monday to show up and get in the Hopeful Line (that means you don't have a guaranteed ticket to meet an artist but you wait in line hoping that there is enough time for you). As he was walking out of the venue Becky yells “Adwoa! Here is your chance!” (see her in the purple shirt pointing at me in the first photo) It was pretty awesome except that some guy photo bombed my picture with a fan. And when I say photo bomb I don’t mean in the cool way like in the background. I mean he blocked me completely out of the shot except for my eyes.
And oh boy LP Field was a hot mess on Sunday! I was able, after an interesting turn of events, to get a festival ticket for Holly. Mother nature had other plans in store for us and the production team decided that because of an oncoming storm they would reduce each artists performance time to 2 songs. So you may be thinking "oh that’s sad but safety first". Well that’s bologna because it never even rained! Not ever, ever, ever. Oh I should also add that the artists who ended up getting the shaft were: BRAD PAISLEY, THE BAND PERRY, JAKE OWEN, and CARRIE UNDERWOOD.
Each of the acts performed like it was the last time they were ever going to perform (i.e. they gave it all they had and you could tell). They all brought their A game. There are currently talks that Jake Owen (who only got to perform one song) will use some type of free platform like radio or StageIt to play more songs for all of us who were upset he only had 5 minutes to play. [update: Jake Owen did perform his set on Wednesday morning via video stream on a Nashville based radio show but it was definitely not the same. It was actually a really sad substitute for the high energy, run around and jump with no shoes on performer.]
For what it's worth Carrie's outfit was really cute and she snuck in 4 songs. It was actually my favorite all time performance of hers that I've seen live.
When I boarded the plane Tuesday to return home, it was unplanned but completely fitting that I wore a The Band Perry t-shirt, Carrie Underwood sweatshirt, Chris Young necklace, and had a Martina McBride luggage tag on my bag.
Nashville, as always, was very good to me. Oh yea I forgot to mention, I got to go tour one of my favorite artist's neighborhood. If you remind me I'll tell you the story in person.
Thanks for following along with my trip! Later gators!
The best is yet to come,
~Adwoa
Day 7-9
On Sunday I had "church” at Riverfront with Matthew West & Ricky Skaggs --it’s ok if you don’t know who Ricky is. He’s sort of a big deal but I don't know much about him.
After that I bumped into a very very small performance by a new duo that I met on Monday at Lee Brice & Jerrod Niemann's fan club party. The group is called American Young. They called me out in the crowd and made me come sit down to watch. At the end of it after chatting for a while the female of the pair, Heidi, insisted on connecting with me via Twitter. So now we are friends with means we're like totally bff's and will have sleepovers, get regular mani-pedis, braid each others hair...just kidding. But it helps to show how down to earth almost all of these musicians are. They are about as average as you and me and I love it!
On another note, I can't convey the complete respect I have for songwriters right now so it will either have to come in a blog or I'll talk more about it next year. But I got to meet the man who wrote some of my favorite songs (Manders he wrote "Can't Shake You" and "Carolina Rose" performed by Gloriana and "In My Daughter's Eyes" performed by Martina). I got his autograph but totally failed to get a photo with him. I had my camera around my neck and everything but I was trying to play it cool. However, I didn't play it cool when I got this photo with Dave Haywood from Lady Antebellum. Dave was just finishing up a ping pong match with Charles as a fundraiser during the festival.
I finally “met” Chris Young after his mom Becky had been telling me since Monday to show up and get in the Hopeful Line (that means you don't have a guaranteed ticket to meet an artist but you wait in line hoping that there is enough time for you). As he was walking out of the venue Becky yells “Adwoa! Here is your chance!” (see her in the purple shirt pointing at me in the first photo) It was pretty awesome except that some guy photo bombed my picture with a fan. And when I say photo bomb I don’t mean in the cool way like in the background. I mean he blocked me completely out of the shot except for my eyes.
And oh boy LP Field was a hot mess on Sunday! I was able, after an interesting turn of events, to get a festival ticket for Holly. Mother nature had other plans in store for us and the production team decided that because of an oncoming storm they would reduce each artists performance time to 2 songs. So you may be thinking "oh that’s sad but safety first". Well that’s bologna because it never even rained! Not ever, ever, ever. Oh I should also add that the artists who ended up getting the shaft were: BRAD PAISLEY, THE BAND PERRY, JAKE OWEN, and CARRIE UNDERWOOD.
Each of the acts performed like it was the last time they were ever going to perform (i.e. they gave it all they had and you could tell). They all brought their A game. There are currently talks that Jake Owen (who only got to perform one song) will use some type of free platform like radio or StageIt to play more songs for all of us who were upset he only had 5 minutes to play. [update: Jake Owen did perform his set on Wednesday morning via video stream on a Nashville based radio show but it was definitely not the same. It was actually a really sad substitute for the high energy, run around and jump with no shoes on performer.]
For what it's worth Carrie's outfit was really cute and she snuck in 4 songs. It was actually my favorite all time performance of hers that I've seen live.
When I boarded the plane Tuesday to return home, it was unplanned but completely fitting that I wore a The Band Perry t-shirt, Carrie Underwood sweatshirt, Chris Young necklace, and had a Martina McBride luggage tag on my bag.
Nashville, as always, was very good to me. Oh yea I forgot to mention, I got to go tour one of my favorite artist's neighborhood. If you remind me I'll tell you the story in person.
Thanks for following along with my trip! Later gators!
The best is yet to come,
~Adwoa
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