Brad Paisley with pictures y'all

This was on our way out from lunch at Joe's Crab Shack
Here we are tailgating with our mug root beer ;)


I have been to a lot of concerts in my life….a lot! Brian is a country fan so I bought tickets to go to Brad Paisley last weekend. I sheepishly enjoy country music. I scarcely vocalize that point, and I almost never listen to it. Still, I like country and at one point owned a significant amount of it (right before all my cds were stolen). At any rate, I went to this concert because I knew Brian would enjoy it and I figured it would be entertaining at the very least. Oh contraire, my friends, contraire. This concert was beyond entertaining! Walk with me a moment and I will try to do justice to this experience. We arrived to the parking lot 3 hours early….that’s right, 3 hours! We were supposed to go on a boat ride in Sac, but I never found the location so we went to sleeptrain amphitheater early with high hopes of finding something, anything to do. Instead we drove around for an hour and then joined the tailgaters. When we first pulled up I was stifling my laughs as the parking lot resembled EVERYTHING I would have stereotypically ascribed to this joyous occasion, right down to the red neck hot tub (on the bed of a pick up truck). There were countless cowboy hats, boots, wranglers, jean skirts, and the entire parking lot appeared as if flannel plaid had thrown up on it. Seriously, I was thinking that I should have worn my plaid dress or something in order to fit in with the crowd. There was Coors and Budweiser as far as the eye could see with the majority of the recipients sporting lips bulging with Copenhagen. There were any number of trucks, 4 wheel drive vehicles, and bumper stickers. Additionally, the tailgaters had little grills out BBQ-ing away as they waited for doors to open. I was immediately surprised at the amount of people there. Some 15,000 people showed up to watch Brad Paisley. Brian informed me that Brad is HUGE which I now believe. Initially I couldn’t suppress pangs of hilarity as I listened to bits of conversations and watched in horror as drunks yee-hawed. But then we entered the amphitheater, and everything changed. From Jimmy Wayne (the opener) to the grand finale, I was swept away. As you know, country music is based on story songs. It is one of the few genres that listeners can deduct what is going on just by listening to the lyrics. Because of this, I felt as if I was privy to the intimate details of the lives of these musicians for several hours before I was forced to reclaim my own life and mind. It. was. Intoxicating. I didn’t know a single song Brad performed, but by the time I left, I knew him, well enough to call him Brad :) I watched, jaw dropped, as he grew from a precocious child to a furtive teenager. Through song, he enlightened me on his vulnerabilities and dreams, his goals and desires, and then…his future. I wiped tears away as he proposed to his wife and hurled me into a new dimension with the birth of his child. He lugged me along to feel the spirituality of fishing, and the hilarity in trying to stifle a boy’s desires. He supported me while he sang about the poignancy of technology and the beauty of surprise; the challenges that come with scientific advances as well as the overpowering strength of biology. Through him, I felt pride and dismay for our country. He evoked pity and embarrassment while simultaneously encouraging congratulatory sentiments for the girls of his youth. His last song, dedicated to alcohol, made me miss, (if I’m really being honest) for a split second, the familiarity of intoxication. He was believable, real, and at the end of three hours of music, he was my friend. I can’t say that I’ve ever felt that way after a concert before. There’s something so different about a country concert. I’m converted! So if anybody has the opportunity to check out a chicken kickin’ boot stompin’ bull ridin’ show… do it! You won’t be sorry!