Pour Some Sugar On Me

Today is my 3rd wedding anniversary. (I'll pause for applause.) Last night, Muscles, wonderful husband that he can be, took me to a country music awards show in Cashville, Tennekee as a gift. Yep, he outdid himself this time. Usually (as in the past 2 years), we just bebop down to our favorite restaurant for a quite evening of yummy food. We were both pretty pumped about this, though.

Muscles picked me up directly from work to head down there, so I had to make a temporary vanity station in my office. But it worked. I wore a long, patterned dress with braided straps. Very summer-y. Very retro-ish. Jonathan wore jeans, a button down, and a tie. We were adorable, if I do say so myself, but we were also a bit nervous. No one had informed us what the proper attire for this event would be. Luckily, we quickly noted when we arrived that no one else had been informed either. There were formal gowns, blue jeans, t-shirts, casual dresses, sports coats, and boots. Lots of boots.

We found our seats and were pleasantly surprised. We were five rows from the mosh pit, at side stage. On the tickets, we had feared this "Side Stage" label as we weren't sure if we'd be staring at camera cords and the backs of heads. It worked out, though, that side stage was actually just to the right of the stage and we were much closer than those who had tickets "front stage" (or whatever that's called. The next thing we noticed was that there was an abundance of alcohol around us. Neither of us had anything to drink, but our section definitely reeked of hard liquor. My only concern was that these sweet, fun, little beverages would catapult normally pleasant show-watchers into Up-And-Downers. And I was correct. The fateful result was alot of awkward flattening my legs against my chair and standing up to grumble under my breath. I dislike a show disruptor.

Anyway, one of the most interesting parts of the show was that I got to see everything happen behind the scenes. Below are some interesting things I picked up, in list format:

1. A choreographer came out about 30 minutes before the show went live and taught the people in the mosh pits some sweet moves to accompany the opening number. Without going into too much detail, I will inform you that there was a rodeo-style arm twisting move that some patrons of the bar outside enjoyed a bit too much.

2. Another producer or something came out and asked all fans to help with an emotional number by Trace Adkins. He asked that, when he gave us the signal (a flashlight), we would all turn on our cell phones and wave them slowly through the air, lighter-style. This was neat to see come to fruition, except that I felt like an idiot waving my cell phone in the air, periodically pushing the button so the light would stay on, and showing the world my background photo of Pokey, my pet dog.

3. There really weren't that many stars and starlets there. There were about 4 rows sectioned off for the famous folk, right behind the presentation stage. We were one section away from this, so we watched each of them come up the stairs from The Important Area Below.

4. Coincidentally, the entire front row of the mosh pit was made up of big-breasted, blond women in white wife beaters. Hm. At first, I thought I just missed the memo on appropriate attire, but, of course, they were planted there. Who wants someone's chain-smoking grandma front and center?

5. Every time a performer finished, the camera panned to another stage, and a church of men dressed in black from head to toe scurried out on the stage to disassemble the set. And EVERYTHING was on wheels. They wheeled a set out, and wheeled a new one in, band members already in place. Taking the wife beater-wearing women into consideration, it reminded me of a pit stop in a Nascar race.

6. Perhaps the mos interesting behind-the-scenes tidbit was the teleprompters. I had never been to a live recording of anything, and I had never sat in a position where I could see a teleprompter while a celebrity was reading from it. On one hand, this ruined the lame jokes Here's-Your-Sign Guy made because I could see the punchlines before he said them. On the other hand, it was funny to to see the celebrities that made up their own material rather than read the script. Muscles, old man that he is, did not bring his glasses, so he could not participate in the discussion about the teleprompters.

All in all, it was a lovely evening. We were starved when the show was over, so we stopped at Hooter's for some wings. (It was delish, but that place always makes me feel a little skeezy.)

We headed home, happy, and proud of another successful year.