Summer concert series - Garth Brooks

So Garth Brooks...for my non country music loving people out there - he was big in the 90's.  He was like the top selling country music artist back then.  I was only in high school & wasn't a concert junkie yet so I didn't go see him when he came to Louisville.  He retired from music, then he changed his identity (think Prince being a symbol?) to 'Chris Gaines' & put out an album as the alter ego.  (No, that didn't go over well.)  He had a show in Vegas a few years ago, he got divorced & then re-married a fellow country music 90's icon, Trisha Yearwood, & now has decided to do a world tour & has a new album out.  

You're all caught up...

I had read that he was going on tour but he had only announced a date in Chicago.  It sold out in less than 10 minutes...so he added more dates (10 I think?) to Chicago.  I didn't really think about going all the way to Chicago to see him.  I mean-that's just crazy talk.  (You may remember us crazies we went to see Jason Aldean in Chicago last year...) Then one night while trolling Ticketmaster I saw he was going to do 2 weekends in Atlanta.

I called Shauna & in 4.2 minutes we bought tickets for a concert...in Atlanta...for 2 weeks later...

Yes, you read that right - ATLANTA, GEORGIA.

Yes, we drove to Atlanta & back in 2 days.

Yes, we are insane.

Yes, we would do it again.

(Disclaimer - that bastard Garth Brooks has since announced he is also coming to Lexington the end of October.  We did not know this when we got our tickets.  But our story going to Atlanta will be wayyy better than any story about going to Lexington.  Hmph, Lexington, puh-lease.)

Before I tell you about the show, I have to tell you about the guy we saw get the shit beat out of him by a cop.  YES WE DID.

Ya'll have met me - you know I have to have a plan...& we had an epic plan.  Garth was doing 2 shows a night Friday, Saturday & Sunday:  6:30 & 10:30.  We decided to do the 10:30 show on Saturday night to give us more time to drive down there, check into our hotel & nap before the concert.  We do love us some naps.

We got there around 2:00 & our room wasn't ready yet.  We stayed in downtown Atlanta within walking distance of the arena.  Yes, I'm old & called ahead to make sure it was 'safe' for 2 lovely females to be walking the downtown streets of Atlanta late at night.  Her response was, "Oh yes honey, it's safe."

(Remember there will be a cop hitting a guy w/ a stick later...)

ANYWAY-we were hungry so the valet at the hotel told us to walk to the CNN building because there was a food court inside.  I said, "Ok-how far a walk is that?"  He turned & pointed & said, "It's right there.'  It was a 5 min walk...

 When we got our tickets for the show we only had the option to sit behind the stage.  Make no sense?   Yea, me either.  I was not too worried because I figured surely they wouldn't sell us a ticket to a show we couldn't see?  (And because I hate surprises I researched on the internet about his tour in Chicago.  I was pleasantly surprised to read that the stage had no backdrop so there would be full view to all seats & Garth even comes around to the back of the stage to sing.  Score!)  Our ticket said, "Full view rear" so I had a lot of fun telling all the people around us as we waited over an hour to get into the arena (more on that in a minute) that we had 'full view of his rear'.  There may have been drinking involved...

As we walked down the busy streets to the arena we were waiting at a light to cross the intersection.  And you need to NOT think about measly intersections in Louisville.  No, people.  This intersection was 4 lanes wide with a decorative plant vegetation thingie separating the 2 lanes going one way & 2 going the other.  Big intersection. 

I heard a loud, revving engine noise that I immediately recognized as motorcycles.  All of a sudden, like 6 DIRT bikes had cut up between the cars waiting at the red light & ripped through the intersection.  It was quite the spectacle.  As you can imagine there were security & officers around.  I immediately heard the sound of sirens as the motorcycle cop parked near the intersection speeded toward the cars stopped at the light where the dirt bikes had come from.  He blocked the section of road so no more dirt bikes could get through between the parked cars & I saw 2 more guys on dirt bikes trying to dump their bikes & run.  And that cop jumped on one of them...& proceeded to beat him with a night club.  YES HE DID.

Again - drinking may have been involved so it took me a minute to grab my damn phone.  I zoomed in the best I could but if you look between the headlights you can see the cops bald head & down towards the ground his foot.   We could see the stick hitting the guy trying to get him down but I couldn't get that on my super cool iPhone 6 phone.

Suddenly there were cops everywhere coming from every direction.  While they were detaining the other guys, another thug came tearing through the intersection on a 4 wheeler & was popped up & only riding on 2 tires.  It was insanity.  

After they loaded the men into the patrol cars we all sat around talking & gabbing about what we saw.  I said, "Ya'll - shit like this doesn't happen where we're from!"

We survived our first police brutality incident {& I say that in jest of course.  I have no opinion on whether the cop used excessive force.  I am a big proponent of 'there are 2 sides to every story.  I have NO idea how scary it is to be a police officer.  Not knowing when you come up on someone if they're going to try & KILL you??  People are crazy nowadays.  I think cops are very brave for doing what they do for citizens... like firefighters!  Nor do I know any of the back story of these dirt bike bandits.  Is this something they do a lot?  I mean-they could have killed a pedestrian the way they tore through that intersection.  There were no headlights on those dirt bikes, it was dark outside & they were going FAST.   That cop seemed to know exactly where to go to block their way so it makes me think they may do this a lot.  I couldn't see everything that went down.}

 Since the pre-show was over, we continued our walk to the arena.  We had gotten an email that doors would open at 9:30.  We decided to get down to the arena around 9:00 or 9:15 to have time to get in & get t-shirts & drinks.   UHM apparently everyone else had the same idea.  Ya'll there were people EVERYWHERE outside waiting to go in.

 We waited... & we waited...  Lucky we are friendly gals & chatted it up with people standing around us.  We took a selfie & if I hadn't been drinking had my wits about me I would've cropped that bitch out that photo bombed us before I posted it on Facebook.  I hate photo bombs.  Add them to my pet peeve list.  
If I wanted to ruin a picture, I could do that all on my own.  I don't need anyone elses help.

At least in this one we are pretty...just don't look at that bitch her...

 We waited for over an hour before they opened the doors at 10:15!  UHM, yea.  Remember the show was supposed to start at 10:30?  Guess who was all anxious about not getting to her seat on time?

Thankfully we were able to use the bathroom, get a drink & find our seats.  And when they say full rear view - it was...but we've never been so close to the stage.  It was amazing.  That's our view - no zoom.

We sat & waited to see if the show would start soon.  You can see all the empty seats behind us.  Not everyone is as prompt crazy as us.  

 We were hungry so we decided to divide & conquer.  I would get food, Shauna would get us more drinks.  I saw this young lady while waiting in line for nachos.  NOW-I have nothing against tattoos...I really don't.  But I don't understand why people want to put them all over their faces & every available patch of skin they possess.  I mean - I have a lot to express too... I just choose to talk peoples arms off or write very lengthy blog posts rather than ink up my body... Lucky you guys...

 Around 11:15 the show still hadn't started.  I told the lady sitting next to me, "they really should announce when the show will start so people know to start making their way to their seats."  About one minute later there was an announcement it would start in 5 minutes.  She said, "I bet they heard you."   It started one HOUR after it was scheduled... unacceptable...

Lucky for Garth we're forgiving girls because he did come to the back of the stage several times.

 I mean - we couldn't have seen this good if we were in the front of the stage in the very back.

 His wife, Trisha Yearwood, came out in the middle to sing their duet together.

 She hung out & sang a few more songs.  I thought Garth would take a break & go 'back stage' & relax.  Nope, he stayed on stage & played in the band while she sang.

 For his 2nd or 3rd encore (who can remember?!)  at around 1:30 AM the stage started to move.  That orb thingie has the drummer inside it.  It came up out of the floor.  You can see under him & the background singers the stage is coming up from the main stage.  Very cool.
We got back to the hotel around 2AM & got our butts in bed because we had a 7 hour drive the next day.  Who thought this was a good idea again?

  We started to head back home around 11:15 the next morning.  Shauna's 'low oil' light came on in her car.  We had to stop to get oil.  Lucky for me she knows about this kinda thing because I would've been in trouble.  I know how to check oil kinda & I know where to look for the cap thingie to put the oil into kinda.  But I'm more of one to bat my eyelashes at someone, play the damsel in distress & say, "Can you help me put more oil in my car?" Who wants to get their hands dirty with oil & possibly break a nail?  No thank you.  
Shauna is able to handle all that herself.  But I did do my part, people - I read on the oil cap thingie of what kind of oil she needed to buy AND I carried the funnel the auto parts store let us borrow back to them.
  So there.

 Thanks to Shauna for being crazy enough to do stupid stuff like this with me & for driving!  And to her hubby, Brian, for letting her be crazy w/ me & taking care of their kiddos.  Of course my hubby was working on the combine & probably didn't even know I was gone.  
I kid, I kid...sorta...