Dateline Nashville - CMA Music Fest 2011 - Day one continued

When we last left our fearless travelers, they had just emerged from the Convention Center after meeting a ridiculous number of people in a ridiculously short amount of time.  The sun was hot and bright as the rays bounced off of the birthday tiara... oh wait, sorry, got a little carried away there.

My friend was right, there is NO way to do everything!  The pure amount of humanity and music and things to do and see is overwhelming.  However we though maybe we would try some of the outside activities before the big concerts that evening.  As we walked down the street we realized we were walking right past one of the most famous buildings in Nashville.  Here is my attempt at a self portrait with that building in the background...

 Yeah, I know... too much me, not enough building.  Any wild guesses??  Ok, I won't leave you in suspense.  Let's try again...

Well at least we got the name of the building in the shot this time!  That's right, the Ryman Auditorium.  On my next (calmer) visit to Nashville, I'd love to see a show here and at the Grand Ole Opry as well.

So we're walking and everytime a path clears these two jump out and start drawing on the sidewalk.   They were from the Chris Young street team.   That guy knows how to market!  You may know Chris as the guy who sings the hit "Tomorrow" with that deep sexy gravely voice of his.  To me he's very Trace Adkins-ish.   I however had the pleasure of meeting him before he even won Nashville Star years ago.   He was in the competition and my hubby and I were having an anniversary dinner at the Alabama Cafe.  I looked over and there he was.  He was very friendly, humble, and um.... yeah... long tall drink of water hot.  See for yourself!

We made our way to the Gildan Fun Zone which was indeed... full of fun.  There were artist signings, concerts, free Ocean Spray, the Hard Rock stage, and restaurants galore.  I'll be darned if I can remember where we ate that day.  Someplace that had an upstairs and I had a really good burger but yeah, couldn't tell you the name of the establishment.  By this time both of us had blisters on our feet and we were hot and tired but pumped up on adrenaline.  I was smart enough to have band aids in my purse so after a quick stop to bandage our poor feet, we trucked on down the road.  In the Fun Zone we met in no particular order...

  The Street Preacher... being from Memphis we see these guys a lot downtown but its mostly one guy.  These guys were a whole tag team.  

 Elvis... didn't I say I was from Memphis?  Elvis is Everywhere! Go ahead, click the link... you know you want to! 

Luke Bryan (shake it for me!)

This band who had just finished a set on the Lay's Main Stage

and of course, my good friend Hootie.  Oh, I mean Darius. He still lets me call him Hootie.

With the night time LP Field concerts gearing up we thought we'd get in line for the convenient free shuttle over to the venue.  We walked and walked and walked and walked until we finally found the end of the line along with a security guard who said in the hour and a half she'd been sitting there, the very same people were standing in the very same spots.  We made an executive decision to walk across the footbridge... I mean, how bad could it be???

One and a half miles with blisters on our feet... but we made it!  At at least it was pretty architecturally.  And look who we found at the end of the path... almost like a leprechaun with a pot of gold!  

As we took this lovely shot, Elvis made sure to whisper in my ear "I do this for tips".  Classy, Elvis, real Classy.

After going through the security line (where they really did turn people away for bringing backpacks), we started the journey to our seats.  We walked and walked and walked and limped and limped and almost got to the point of a crawl when we finally reached the top of LP Field.  Yes, the very tippy top.  We fell into a couple of seats and sighed with relief.  I'm not fond of heights and Mandie is 5'10" so her knees were in her chest but at least we had seats, right??

This was our view.  Thank goodness for zoom lenses and big screens. 

 I love Zac Brown Band on the radio and I've heard good things about seeing them live but I had no idea what a show we were in for!  This guy rocks the house!!!  I will be a forever fan.  And even better... he brings friends!  

Why yes, that IS Randy Travis!

And no, your eyes don't deceive you, that IS Alan Jackson!

Do yourself a favor if you've never given the Zac Brown Band a listen.  You won't regret it.  These boys will be around for a long time to come.  

This kid is Easton Corbin.  You might have heard his hit "I'm a Little More Country Than That".  About the time he came on stage Mandie and I mutually decided we'd be much happier watching from the main level even if we couldn't see much.  We excused ourselves as we crawled over our seatmates and started the long journey down.   We missed seeing Sara Evans as we walked but we could hear her just fine.  Same goes for Jason Aldean whose special guest was Kelly Clarkson.   I did however catch a pic of this guy...

Yeah, that's Ricky Skaggs.  Not a fan of the hair Ricky, but you still sounded good. 

Once we reached the main floor we spent the remainder of the time circling and hoping no one would ask us where we were supposed to be sitting.  Eventually we figured out that hundreds of others seemed to be doing the same.  The tiara got me a lot of birthday wishes and I truly felt like the Belle of the Ball.  The energy was amazing and everyone was just plain nice.  We enjoyed talking to lots of different people and at times even forgot there was a concert going on.

Brad Paisley ended the evening and put on a great show but he was a lot less personable than I imagined him to be.  I chalk it up to him only having so much time allotted to perform.  However he did bring out his own surprise guests... after all, he does have a song about them. 

Won't you play me some Mountain Music, Alabama?

Think we got our $115 worth yet?  Uh, yeah, and so much more!!!  After the music ended we had to hike across the footbridge again but just took it step by step.  Oh yeah, then we had to find our car.  That proved to be quite the challenge but at some point things looked familiar and we found the parking lot we had left what seemed like days ago.  Our plan was to spend the night with a friend who lived about 20 minutes outside of the city.  We gave her a call and she got us on the right road... the very dark road... to her house.  I think I white knuckled it the entire way.   We arrived there around 2am and within minutes were on the phone looking for a hotel in town that had shuttle service.  We learned a lot that first day and the the main lesson was it could have been a lot easier than it was go get around.  Thanks to hotels.com we found the Fairfield Inn and Suites by Opryland.   We were assured there was a shuttle to and from all the activities and booked a room.  I was very thankful my friend understood our reasoning and she was probably relieved we wouldn't be showing up every night at 2am.

This was us... about halfway down from the tippy top of LP Field.  We're still smiling.  Before we went to sleep that night we looked at each other and simultaneously said "there's still three more days of this!"