Fun on the riverbank

Remember me telling you all 2 posts ago that we were going to a concert on the river? (I would link that concert site but it's a dead link now) Well, we did and it's finally recap time. So, it was over a week ago... I told ya'll I was busy!!

We got there about 10 minutes before the gates opened and had to stand in line for a little while but everywhere we looked, we knew someone so it seemed like more of a mini-social than actually waiting. I've never been to this particular venue before but it's a pretty nice setup. It's an amphitheater right on the banks of the Alabama River...hence the name "Riverfront Amphitheater". Care for a look at it? From my seat?












And just to show off the digital zoom on my camera (which will come in handy later, as you will see) here's a shot of the banner hanging over the stage. Notice the sponsors. They'll also come into play a little later.













The first act up was Susan Haynes. She puts on a pretty good show. She's a cute little blonde with a big voice. That's always a plus. The cute blonde part, I mean. She announced that she was pregnant too, which brought a collective "Awww" and applause from the audience. I'm sure all the guys in the audience that got a good look at her thought the same thing I did. But I won't put that on here. Oh, I haven't even shown you what she looks like yet. You'll see what I mean. Hold on, let me post that right quick.












See what I mean? She's really easy to look at while she sings. Here's a good picture of her with one of the DJ's from the radio station that was hosting the show.















I borrowed it from their website along with 2 more that I might want to use. Check out the rest of their pictures here if you want to. She only has one single out but she did a few covers and they sounded pretty decent. She only played about 30 minutes or so but overall it was enjoyable.

OK, first act down. Set-up change. Equipment crew on stage. Time to show my support for the folks putting this whole thing on. So I get up and head up the hill to the the concession area. Let's check in with the sponsors.












This was a Hummer at the Alabama Army National Guard booth. They had a recruitment team there handing out info to anyone interested in joining the Guard. I'm too old to join now so....I just kept moving.

I ran up on this fledgling entrepreneur as I moved about.












I told myself that I would have to come back in a bit and get me one of these snazzy hats that she was selling. I was torn between the fuzzy pink pimp hat and the "horny" Norse maiden helmet, complete with golden braids. But I got sidetracked and forgot about it. Another point of interest in the photo. See the girl in the pink tank and black skirt with the really nice legs and ass standing just beyond the lady pushing the cart with all of the junk quality merchandise on it? She was one of many "Miller Girls" running around handing out keychains and keeping everyone abreast (nice pun usage, eh?) of which lines were the shortest at the refreshment booths. I decided to follow her around advice and made my way to the big white truck parked at the top of the hill. Did I mention what sidetracked me from the trinket lady?












This would prove to be the first of many trips to this truck as the night progressed. For those of you who can't grasp the concept of what's going on here. This whole truck is filled with kegs of beer. It's refrigerated at (just a guess) around 32-34 degrees. And the kegs are "tapped" through the side of the truck. Which translates to a very quick, easy and efficient way to provide cold draft beer to a large crowd.

Next up on stage was Cowboy Crush. I'd visited their website and heard their songs on the radio and was pretty anxious to hear more out of this group. They were really good. Great, actually. The lead singer is a peppy little thing that is all over the stage while performing. She dances practically non-stop the whole time. See what I mean?






































The fiddler was almost as bad. She was rigged with a wireless set up so she could go anywhere on stage she wanted. And she went everywhere too. She loved standing right on the edge of the stage and interacting with the crowd below her.















I noticed the drummer during one particular song they were playing that was really heavy on the drums and she was flailing her ass off back there. She's a helluva drummer for a girl. But I noticed her hair blowing like mad. She must have had a big fan stuck right under her.












I do imagine the workout a drummer goes through, especially in 85 degree heat under all those lights, could get pretty sweaty pretty fast. (Are ya'll digging that zoom as much as I am?) The keyboard player was about as active as any one person can be and still be standing within reach of the keys. She danced and kicked and twisted nearly all night.












The calmest one of all of them was the one on the guitar. But there were times she was getting into it pretty good. I did manage to snap one photo of her that appears to show 2 completely opposite emotions in the same frame. Notice the lead singer's obvious excitement while the girl in the background looks as though she just saw her boyfriend kissing another girl behind the bus.












I decided to try out the video abilities of the camera and shot the last part of a medley they were doing. You can kind of get a feel for the type of high energy act they are. I need to forewarn you that there are a few shaky parts in it. You can see the people walking by in front of me and a few that walked behind me bumped me as I was filming. I had my legs crossed with the camera propped on my knee to steady it and for the most part, it did pretty well, I think. I didn't say it was gonna be professional and it's not THAT bad so...deal with it or skip it or whatever. It's there for you if you want it. You can see here again how wild the fiddler is while she's playing. And notice the drummer's hair too. And make a mental note about the boats riding up and down the river right behind the stage. I'll come back to that in a minute.

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I'm not sure if this is copyright infringement or not but...if it is, this post was hijacked and I don't know who shot this or put it on here. Just ignore my statement up there that says otherwise.
For those of you who watched the clip, or those of you with dial-up that are reading while you wait...in my own opinion (as if anyone else's matters... this IS my blog after all) these 5 girls were worth the price of admission if they had been the only act there. And when I linked you to the photos and the radio station back up there...I noticed a poll on the sidebar at their site. It seems as if I'm not alone thinking this. Out of 2336 votes cast so far for who put on the best show, they got 1164. That's 49.8% of the votes with the remainder split 5 ways between the other acts. Second place was 509 votes. These girls know how to entertain a crowd.

When they were done, it was time for a trip back up the hill to the big white truck with the pretty girls selling the ice cold draft beer. I decided to buy them 4 at a time from here on out to cut down on the mileage and having to wait so long in line. The radio station putting this on had a really neat contest before the next act came on. I'm not sure how many of you have ever heard of Alaga Syrup but it's made right here in Montgomery, Alabama and has been for 100 years. Since 1906. And they decided to commemorate the centennial with a "Syrup Soppin' Contest". They had 2-person teams that consisted of a "syruper" and a "sopper". And if you Yankees don't know what soppin' is...it's when you pour some syrup in a plate or saucer and dip a (preferably homemade) biscuit in it and eat it. One can also sop the remnants of syrup after enjoying pancakes with syrup. This is usually done by folding or rolling another pancake and using it to "sop" with. Unlike the conventional method of eating pancakes with syrup, sopping is always done with your hands. No forks or other silverware are used. If you pour the syrup over the biscuit or pancakes and use a fork to eat it...it's not sopping. It's merely eating a biscuit or pancakes with syrup. Alternate versions of sopping would include using a biscuit or other piece of bread to sop gravy, spaghetti sauce, etc. They didn't technically "sop" in the contest. The syruper merely covered the biscuit with syrup and gave it to the sopper. The syruper kept them coming while the sopper ate as many biscuits as he/she could in 2 minutes.But this is a photo of the contest underway.












The team on the far left won. The big guy was putting them down almost as fast as she could get the syrup on them.

After the contest was over, it was time for John Conlee to play. He's a lot ummm.....rounder than I remember him being back when he was cranking out the albums. Since the sun had already set and the digital zoom (that had been doing so well up until nightfall) wouldn't take as good a picture as I wanted, I decided to get up and go down to the stage to take a few. I'll show you the difference. This is stage front.

















This is from my seat with the zoom.












No matter what settings I tried, I always wound up with the faces being washed out to nearly white. I'm guessing it was the spotlight or something.

He may have gained a few pounds as he's gotten older, but he hasn't lost a thing in the vocal department. He sounded as good as ever. He got a really big cheer when he broke into "Rose-Colored Glasses", probably his most recognized song ever.

His music even got a few older couples to start dancing right in front of the stage.









And that sparked a few younger couples to join them. There was someone dancing here from then on the rest of the night.

I'd forgotten that he sings "Busted" too. I loved that song the first time I ever heard it being played on the radio and still do to this day. I'm singing it in my head now and will be until I go to bed. It's just one of those kind of songs for me. He also gave a big shout out to the troops that have been, are headed over or may currently be in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Then he ended his show with a really powerful gospel song dedicated to them and their safety. I'd never heard this particular song that I know of and can't remember the name of it now. But it got him a standing ovation.

Another act down, time to go back to the big white truck and get another round of beer. Rhett Akins was getting ready to come on and I wanted to be seated and ready before he played "Kiss My Country Ass" because I knew there would be some rowdy drunks singing along with him and I didn't want to have to try to navigate the maze of folding chairs and dodge fired-up rednecks while holding 4 draft beers that were $4 each. Spilling them would have certainly constituted alcohol abuse. Rhett had a pretty good show too. I really like his guitar finished in Realtree camo.












He sang "That Ain't My Truck" and a few of his other songs. He closed his part of the out with "Kiss My Country Ass" and had the whole crowd screaming along with him when he said it. As Jimmy Buffet would say, "They had worked themselves into a tumultuous uproar." This worked out great for Jamey Johnson, who was up next. The minute his band hit the stage they done the "1-2-3-4" thing and just went wild. They started playing the intro to his newest single, "Rebelicious" and that set the tone for his performance. He walked out from behind the drummer as he started singing and just rocked out. He's one of the new "old fashioned" type singers. He reminds me alot of Hank Jr. back in the early 80's mixed with a bit of Charlie Daniels. He's got the look of someone that would have been packing out seats back in those days.













He sang several of the "outlaw" country hits along with a few off of his new album "The Dollar", and ended his night with the title track.

A break in the action...you know what that means. You guessed it. Back to the big white truck again. Josh Turner would be up next and he was the last act for the night. This meant that part of the crowd should be dwindling down and some were already leaving. I made the trip and was back just in time. He was walking out just as I was sitting down. I handed the beer off to my wife and headed down to the front to get a few pictures. See?













This one turned out pretty good too...















Especially considering the lateness of the evening (nearly midnight) and the fact that I woke up at 4AM to go turkey hunting that morning. And we even won't discuss the alcohol consumption rate of the photographer by this time.

We didn't stay until he finished. He sang the very 3 songs I wanted to hear first and when my wife asked if I was ready to start heading towards the gate, I was more than willing to start breaking camp. By the time we got to our hotel (which was half a block from the gate), he was finishing up his act. My wife usually has pretty good timing on things like this and this time was no different. Check out this picture I snapped from the door of our suite looking down into the bar/dining area.












Freaky looking, huh? I think the camera was still set up for the night shots and the slow shutter speed caused it to turn out like this.

But...that's the evening in retrospect. We had a blast. Well worth the price of a ticket, that's for sure. I think we spent about $80 all night long. That includes tickets, beer, food....everything but the hotel.

Now remember way back up there when I mentioned paying attention the the boats on the river behind the stage? We were sitting there watching boat after boat anchoring near the stage or tying off to some old pilings just out of the channel of the river. We're considering taking our boat next year and following suit. Imagine it...a 24-foot pontoon...on-board restroom...kick-ass sound system...even fresh running water. All we need is an iced-down keg sitting right in the middle of the boat and 6 or 8 of our closest friends and we'll be set. We won't be able to actually watch the concert but that's the only drawback. We'll see how it all works out next year about this time.


This is now officially the longest post I've done. It was a lot more trouble posting all these pics and getting the spacing right than I was hoping it would be when I started. So enjoy this one. It'll be a while before I tackle another big one all at once.