First of all, happy anniversary to my bride. 19 years ago she gave in a married me. Many thanks for the special breakfast of eggs, bacon, grits and toast this morning. It was excellent! We'll celebrate tonight at the ballpark. Yeah, that's right. We know how to live.Friday night we went to the Kenny Loggins concert at The Wildhorse. It was, uh, different that we'd thought it would be. We had dinner in Cool Springs then headed to downtown Nashville. The doors were supposed to open at 6, and the concert was supposed to start at 7. Yeah, right.
We got to 2nd Avenue around 6:30 and there were two very long lines. One for general admission and one for reserved and VIP tickets. After standing in line for almost an hour, our general admission line started moving. When we made it inside to get out tickets, the VIP line still hadn't moved. And the people there were ticked. Several were demanding their money back.
We got inside and the opening act, Dillon Dixon, had already started. And even though hundreds of people were still in line outside, the place seemed pretty crowded already. There weren't alot of places to even stand and get a decent view of the stage. Why was it so crowded? For some unknown reason, The Wildhorse had booked at least four private parties. On the same night as a major concert. Nice. But I kept telling myself that the tickets were free.
We got to hear another band, King Billy, and they were very good. I wouldn't be surprised to see them with a major label in the near future.
After standing around with a bad view, we decided to act like we belonged to one of the parties and headed for a section with a much better view. After about 30 minutes, a couple got up from their seats on the rail and we hopped into them. We were about 20 feet from the stage on the second level. Good seats and no one bothered us. Until about 90 minutes before Kenny Loggins took the stage. One of the Wildhorse employees told those of us in the section that if we weren't a part of the private party that we'd have to go. He said that the person who was sponsoring the private party noticed that several uninvited guests were eating their food. I told the guy that we hadn't had any food and asked if we could just stay since it seemed that the private party was breaking up. He laughed but still said we had to leave, and that he'd open it up for everyone in 30 minutes. We left the area. Five minutes later he opened it up again, but we couldn't get our seats back. We ended up behind the people with seats on the rail. The bride sat for part of the time, but I chose to stand so I could see.
Kenny Loggins came on stage just after 10 and opened with "Whenever I Call You Friend." He told stories before most of his songs. His voice is still as clear now as it was 30 years ago. But he did what alot of artists do when they've got 3 decades worth of music that they could do - he did his new stuff. And it's not like it was bad or anything. It's just that if most everyone wanted to hear his hits. When he played a new song, the audience responded with something akin to a polite "golf clap". But when he did a popular song, the place went nuts. My suggestion is that he do a "just the hits" tour. He could play for 2 hours solid and everyone would love it. The best audience response of the night was for "Celebrate Me Home" and the encore of "Your Mama Don't Dance", "Danger Zone" and "Footloose."
There was one lady who especially loved everything Kenny Loggins played. Heard the term 3 sheets to the wind? Try 7. She was dancing by herself the whole night. Even after falling in the lap of a nearby gentleman, she popped back up like it never happened. And she screamed "FOOTLOOSE!!!! SING FOOTLOOSE!!!!" after every song.
We stayed until around 11:45 and made it home by 12:20. I can't remember the last time we were out that late. 2nd Avenue was full of plenty of 20-somethings, several who probably wondered why "old people" like us were out that late. We spent the rest of the weekend recovering from our late night out.....
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