best weekend in a long time!

whenever i get to sunday evening, i never feel like i have much blog-worthy to write about. my weekends tend to be pretty low-key. and sometimes no-key. i rarely stray from the usual schedule of watching the tv, constantly telling myself to do work, eating, sometimes cooking, and general nothing-ness. not so exciting.

this weekend, though, was a whole other story! sue anne and i went to see Sugarland in concert in roanoke rapids! this amphitheater is in the boonies. actually, no, it's in the suburbs of the boonies. we chose to go up I-85 and cut across on a little highway to get to the place, and in retrospect it was not the right way to go. we did see a lovely sunset, though. anyways, the directions we had took us to a dead end, and not once did we see signs that said "Carolina Crossroads." we didn't even see many cars, and 15,000 screaming fans usually come with their fair share of cars. so sue anne called victoria who looked it up and got us there (THANKS, victoria). turns out we weren't too far off, but we never would've found it using the directions we had. it was super strange, though...this venue just appeared out of nowhere! but that's north carolina for you.

the parking situation was quite funny as well. this parking lot was your standard country field, so there were no rows or markings to indicate where one should park. there were men waving funny orange sticks, though, and i was being waved to park at the very far end of the lot - as far away from the entrance as you can possibly get. so i cut across the field and followed the man in front of me so we could park slightly closer. i felt like i was off-roading in my toyota camry.

finally we get there and see that our "platinum seating" is actually a folding pastic chair with a sticker on the back rest indicating the section, row, and seat numbers. so as we were walking up, we couldn't tell what rows we were passing because people were already in their seats and therefore covering their little seat signs. we managed to find section 2, row q, and there smack dab in the middle were two empty seats in a sea of cowboy hats and bud light cans. we headed for the seats (ignoring the glares as we passed) as kellie pickler was belting out some songs as the warm-up act. she was the final opening act before sugarland, so when she finished, i made a beeline for the portapotties. i will spare you that story, although i will say that someone got smart and started putting hand sanitizer dispensers in portapotties. brilliant.

finally it was time to see SUGARLAND! they were awesome, entertaining, LOUD, exciting, and you could tell that they love to perform. i didn't know at least half the songs because i only own one of their CDs, but i didn't care one bit because they were so fun to watch. definitely one of the best concerts i've ever been to. the set was actually pretty small, but the band made up for it as they danced and shimmied and sang and played their hearts out. it was fantastic! we didn't get home until after midnight, but i would do again to see them again. i would even go back to that weirdo amphitheater. (word of advice: if you end up going to carolina crossroads for a concert, do NOT get lawn seats. the lawn is FLAT and big, so the unlucky people at the back probably didn't see a thing. go for the seats!)

Sue Anne and I at the concert. We do a "self-portrait" anytime we go anywhere fun.

i think this was near the beginning of the show. those two people are jennifer nettles on the left and kristian bush on the right. they're cool.







SUGARLAND! if the stuff behind them looks pixelated, it's because it was. the backdrop had lots of fun images projected onto it. but look how close we were!







I believe they were playing "Everyday American" here. Note the large record player on the screen. It was pretty cool.






If i could sing like anyone famous, it would be Jennifer Nettles.







they're all lookin' for a loveshack. no seriously, they are. they all (including kellie pickler) put on these really tacky wigs and sang the b-52's 'loveshack.' it was hilarious! they also did two REM songs - nightswimming and something that i'm too tired to remember but am sure will come to me in the middle of the night. we were hoping they'd toss the wigs into the crowd, but they didn't. one lucky fan got kristian bush's guitar, though. i was fairly offended because i was clearly telling him where i was located in the crowd of 15,000 or so - i even put my hands in the air and pointed at myself to make it easier for him to find me, and he deliberately ignored me and went to the other side of the seating area and gave it to someone else. granted, i don't know half of their songs and only own one cd, but i had just been talking about getting a guitar again so i felt like it was meant to be. apparently he did not.