Barenaked Ladies in Nashville!

As an early birthday present, MC decided to take me to see Barenaked Ladies, one of my favorite bands, in concert! It took a while to figure out a good place to coordinate seeing them since they weren't coming anywhere too close to Tallahasee, but we eventually decided we could make it work for their Nashville tour date.  Little did we know the deluge Nashville would receive last week!! We didn't actually get to see any of the flood devastation, but we saw tons of photos of what had gone on.  It was definitely some craziness and we were glad that all of our Nashville friends were ok, though there is still much work to be done to get back on track. So we decided to head up to Nashville on Sunday.  The VW GPS decided to take us a different route and, unfortunately, I didn't really look it over before deciding we should try it out.  It ended up adding about an hour and a half to our 8 hour drive up to Nashville.  Not cool Debbie! Anyhoo, we got in fairly late, caught up with my sister for a bit, played with her snazzy iPad, then hit the sack. Lauren had to work on Monday, so she was up and out early.  MC and I enjoyed not having to wake up early for anything so we took our time.  I went down the street to Star Bagel to grab us some breakfast while MC was getting ready (nothing fancy, just a couple bagels and coffee). I had talked to J.D. earlier and we decided to meet up at Jackson's Bar and Bistro.  It had come highly recommended, and with good reason! You can check out my Yelp! Review for further description. :-) After lunch we got to doing some some shopping to try to find a snazzy outfit for MC for our upcoming engagement photos. Even fueled by a snack from Whole Foods, we were unable to find exactly wha t we needed and moseyed back to Lauren's apartment. Lauren got back from work then we got everything together and headed over to dinner.  We met friends Jenny and Neil at Suzy Wong's House of Yum for a very awesome dinner.  A lot of the meals were "family style" so we basically ordered a bunch of different dishes that proceeded to float around the table so everyone could partake.  I did keep my beer to myself though! ;-) From there it was on to Ryman Auditorium! When we booked the tickets, we were in the way back right of the balcony, so we didn't have the highest expectations about how good our view would be.  Little did we know how small and awesome this place is!!  Our view was pretty darn good (though we couldn't really see the drummer because of the way they were situated) and we weren't far at all.  I HIGHLY recommend this venue for any concerts! We got there just a little bit after the opener, Ingrid Michaelson, had begun.  I had not recognized her by na me, but I was familiar with a few of her songs. She was very entertaining and quirky and her final song was a cool vocal solo using a looper.  Cool way to start things off! Luckily it didn't take them too long to get things set up for BNL, but we still had enough time to try to snag a quick pic of my sweetie who made all this possible! Then it was concert time!  I forgot to mention that, as a bonus for buying tickets to their concert, BNL provided the mp3s of their new album for download.  So MC and I utilized some of our 9.5 hour drive up to Nashville to familiarize ourself with the new stuff too.  :-) Anyhoo, back to the view! It was so cool that I could still get ok pics, just with my cell phone!  If I had known this venue was so camera friendly, I would have brought my D90! They did a really good job of providing a mix of their older and newer songs.  They played about all of my favorite songs, which made the present even better! :-) They put on a great show and the small venue made it easy to understand them when they had banter with the audience.  Initially, I was confused because there were only 4 people on stage and I remember the band having 5.  Well, apparently, I've been out of the BNL loop and in 2009 Steven Page (one of the lead vocalists) left the band.  I haven't been able to find much information about him leaving, but it is described and being mutual, but sp ed up by a cocaine possession charge against Steven.  The band still did a good job, but since he provided a lot of the main vocals, had a distinctive voice, and the bassist isn't near as talented a singer, there was definitely a difference in the sound of the band.  Some songs sounded pretty similar, but ones in which Steven was featured sounded more like a talented BNL cover band than BNL themselves.  It was still and awesome show, but I missed Steven!  Anyhoo, as I mentioned, the playlist was pretty varied and they even had a few guests!  One was Erin McCarley, who sang on one of their newest tracks (though not on the latest CD I don't believe).  MC was a big fan of her voice, and we'll likely be checking more of her music out!  The other was a complete surprise.  Apparently, some of the BNL guys had see Cadillac Sky perform the night before and saw o ne of their band members (David) in the audience.  Ed (the lead singer) said he had never done it, but would regret not asking him to come up and play guitar with them for a song.  He accepted and boy did he tear it up!  I believe we saw Cadillac Sky one year at Rhythm and Roots in Bristol, and I remember them being pretty good.  I will definitely be checking them out now! Overall it was an awesome show and I'm super thankful to MC for organizing everything for a very special birthday present from someone I love. :-) After the show, we headed back to Lauren's and promptly crashed after a long and awesome day! Tuesday we got up and hit the road early to get back to Tally.  It was a short trip to Nashville, but it was worth it to see friends and my sister and, of course, the concert! Thanks to MC for coordinating it and Lauren for putting us up and providing transportation! Now it's back to the grind for a very busy week!

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