All I wanna Do oo oo oooo ooooo...

For those of you living under a rock, Sugarland came to the Alpharetta Verizon Amphitheatre on Thursday, and guess who was smart enough to buy tickets way back in January? This girl! I'm not a die-hard Sugarland fan or anything, but I happened to come across them on Ticketmaster for only $35, and figured why not? So I grabbed two. Apparently it sold out, so I was a lucky duck!

To prep for the concert extravaganza, the bf made homemade boiled peanuts to bring. Talk about perfect tailgating snacks! After work Thursday, we grabbed some Coronas (the gas station near our assigned parking lot has very limited beers, btw), a footlong subway, and headed to our spot. The weather was making me nervous all day long, because it was teetering between sweltering 105 degrees or severe thunderstorms on the radar; neither of which would be ideal. However, when we got to the lot, it had actually cooled down (which made us think that the storm was a comin'). While we set up our rather ghetto tailgate outside of my Honda Civic (bf took Marta to work that day so we would only have one car and I picked him up) of fold out chairs and small cooler, a giant SUV of professional tailgaters pulled up next to us. They busted out a folding table, pasta salad, cookies, wine, Mike's Hard lemonade (I wasn't jealous of this, I just thought it was worth mentioning) and tons of other snacks. They totally put our tailgate to shame, though I think the bf and I were still content with ours. We also had a little entertainment, when we witnessed a group of 16 year old girls take Breathalyzers, and a couple of young dudes get taken away in handcuffs. Talk about a buzzkill for them! Poor guys.

Best tailgate ever

Concert time was coming, so we made our way into the amphitheatre, with the blanket and a Corona to go. Hey, it's a 5 minute walk, we needed refreshments ;) We ended up getting pretty decent seats on the lawn, and rented out some chairs to sit on so we would be a bit more comfortable. Danny Gokey was the opener, I think he was an American Idol finalist. We came in right as he was finishing up, which I wasn't too upset about. Next came Little Big Town. I had heard of them before, but couldn't put my finger on any of their songs beforehand. Turns out, I knew two or three of them! All of the songs they played were great, so I think I'll be buying their new album on Itunes when it comes out in a couple of weeks.

Full house!

At this point of the night, I had a giant Blue Moon beer (my fav - bf is so good to me!!) and the wind was seriously picking up. It was that scary wind that comes right before it is about to downpour and storm, you know? I kept saying that it was NOT going to rain, and the clouds were going to brush right passed us, despite the fact that they were black....Spoiler alert: I was RIGHT! NO rain!

It was a bit windy, but I had my Blue Moon :)

Now for the main event, SUGARLAND! They opened with a nice Michael Jackson song playing, which I'm still not sure I totally understand, but enjoyed nonetheless. Let me just tell you, they are amazing live! Jennifer Nettles can sing like there is no tomorrow. I knew she had a fantastic voice, but it is even better live! I also love that her and Christian are both from Ga, so I think they treated us extra special since it was their hometown. Nettles said some of her Agnes Scott friends were in the audience (I didn't know she went there!) and her family as well. Anyways, they put on a fantastic show. They played every single hit that I know, plus some new ones that I liked. {Side note: I hate when you go to concerts and they totally disregard all of their old hits and only play new stuff that no one knows. I'm talking to you, Black Crowes.} All in all, it was a fantastic show, and at the end they did a song with Little Big Town which was great too. I think I can now consider myself a die-hard Sugarland fan.

Sugarland!

Oh, but what's up with Nettles' hairdo that she was rocking? She basically came in with some curly/moppy/mullet/mohawk-ish type of thing, and I wasn't feeling it. I overlooked it though, because she is such a badass. See here:

Sorry, Jen.. That hairdo is a hairdon't! (sorry, couldn't resist)

Updating my Itunes with some new songs today!

Nashvegas

So, I know this is technically an Atlanta blog, but I just got back from Nashville and want to share the experience! Nashville has been on my personal bucket list for quite some time now, so the bf and I decided to go for the 4th of July this year. Let me just say, what a fantastic city!

Broadway Street

There was so much to do in Nashville, so we hit the ground running the second we got to our hotel. Of course, we hit the the Honky Tonk strip bars first and foremost. All day, those places are hoppin'! My favorite place was Tootsies, which had the best bands AND the "Holler and Swaller". You can probably figure that one out on your own, but basically the band will have the whole bar raise their glasses, everyone hollers, and you take a big swig of beer! That pretty much sums up what we did all afternoon each day.

Best Band at Tootsies!

At night, we tried some restaurants that we chose after thorough online research. The first one was Whiskey Kitchen. The drinks and food were both delicious. I settled for my usual wine, while bf tried a New Fashioned, which is an Old Fashioned with apples and cinnamon in it. Delish! (Well, for those bourbon fans out there at least…) The second night we went to Sunset Grill, which was even better! We split a bunch of appetizers, a hummus platter, a seafood platter, some polenta cheese fries… SO much food! Definitely recommend this place if you head to Nashville soon.

To be touristy, we visited the Ryman Auditorium (original Grand Ole Opry) and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Now, I love the “pop country” that you hear all over CMT, but I’ll admit that I don’t really know old school country (Hank Williams, Tammy Wynatte, etc…) so some of the exhibits were a little over my head. Still great museums though! We did get to go backstage at the Ryman to see the dressing rooms, so we saw the rooms that people like Johnny and June once got ready in.

Being tourists on the stage at the Ryman

Tired of the ridiculous tour group we were forced to walk around with, we decided to do something a little more "us", so we found a local Nashville brewery to visit. It’s called Yazoo Brewery, and it was so fun! They just relocated to a larger building, because they are starting to gain some serious street cred. Before the tour began, which is only $6 and includes heavy samples, we got the beer sampler which contained 6 different Yazoo beers.

All the Yazoo brews!

Then we went on the tour and got to see where all the beer is brewed daily. It’s pretty cool, because a lot of it is still done manually. That will soon change as they keep growing as a company, I’m sure. The best thing that they offer is beer in a giant container, called a Growler. All of the locals were coming in with their empty containers to get refills for the weekend.

Growler o' Beer

The last day was geared towards 4th of July celebrations. They had downtown Nashville flooded with cheesy festival stuff; water slides for the kids (or drunk adults), food vendors, live music, and a beer garden. So we spent the day weeding through the crowds and drinking some beers before settling down on a statue of some sort to watch the fireworks. We ended up having perfect seats, as the phenomenal fireworks were right over our head! I’ve never seen fireworks so fantastic in my life; it was a site!

Happy 4th of July

All in all, a perfect trip to Nashville. I came home about 10 lbs heavier from beer alone, but that’s the price you pay for a great Fourth of July with great company :)


~E