Recap: Milgokey Fan’s Appalachian Fair & Grand Ole Opry Adventures

Warning: This is a two show recap so it is really, really long. If you decide to proceed ahead you may want to grab a snack and a beverage…and maybe a pillow

Monday, August 23 – the day started out clear and warm in sunny Nashvegas. A perfect Gokey day. Asics and I had been in town, or on the town, depending who you ask, a day and a half soaking up the country music history and atmosphere that is Nashvegas and were about to leave on our 4 plus hour trip to Gray. We hopped in the car with plenty of CD’s and road trip snacks and off we went, driving through the hills and valleys of the long, beautiful state of Tennessee. Asics and I rocked out to Danny along the way, with a few other country artists thrown in to help quench Asics thirst for all things country music! She is such a country music sponge. Everything was going great and we didn’t even get lost so we made it to Gray in time to pick up Steph at the airport. Yes, we did actually see Steph leaving the airport. Granted we didn’t see her get off the plane but I’m pretty sure ya’ll would have heard about a spaceship landing in Tennessee. Unless she….oh, never mind. [Comment from Steph: despite my better judgment, I left this part in when posting for milgokey, but see below for my revenge ]

A quick stop at the hotel and a bite to eat at Arby’s (while unbeknownst to us Danny was apparently at a nearby Olive Garden, arrgh!) and off to the fair we went. We met up with RachR for a few minutes and a quick round of iheart hugs. Hi RachR! She had already gotten face time with Danny at the radio interview. Lucky girl! We missed it though. The Arby’s decision comes back to haunt us again. **sigh**

We picked up our tickets and headed to the concert area on our mission to find Country, the blogger from countryschatter.com who had written about Danny and felt the wrath of his fans some time ago. We found her in a tent booth right next to Danny’s tour bus where he was getting started doing radio sponsored meet & greets. If we stood on tiptoes and looked in between a few heads we could see the top of his spiky hair. The excitement began! Country explained to us that she is a fan of traditional country music and has a hard time accepting the new sounding country. We told her to give Danny a chance, watch the show and let us know what she thought. See her very complimentary blog for the answer. There weren’t any SHF meet & greets for this show so when Country found out how far we had traveled she tried to sweet talk the radio guy into letting us in. I really like her!!! He was not convinced however and we remained exiled from the m&g’s. Don’t like him so much.

We estimated the venue had about 1,200 preassigned seats near the stage/catwalk and there were grandstands further back that would hold another 2,000 or more. Danny was going to be the lone performer for this show. We found our pre-assigned seats, 10^th row and about 8 seats away from the catwalk. The seats filled in quickly as well as most of the grandstand. Then…showtime! There were no signs of vocal distress from the Walton show. Thank you NY Gokey fans for taking such good care of our Danny!

Danny sounded AMAZING! He bounded on stage after a very cool band intro to LTABT (Jamie was there and Ivan got to sing for the intro, too!) and continued with his usual set. I can never remember what order they’re in but he did all the tracks from his album plus WHTM, Hard to Handle, Back at One/Raining on Sunday, T.R.O.U.B.L.E., Life is a Highway, and Livin’ On a Prayer. At one point, he all of a sudden left the stage and we all were quite puzzled because it was way too early for the show to be over. Then Brandon and Matt started a very cool acoustic guitar duet that led into Danny returning to the stage to sing CNT. I loved it!! They seem to be tweaking the show all the time to see what works.

What worked really well was Danny on that catwalk. He was up and down, running, dancing, twirling and hand slapping during all the uptempo songs. You could tell he really works to connect with the audience and they were eating it up. Towards the end of the show he told everyone he would be signing merchandise afterwards. Then he invited everyone to get out of their seats and move closer to the stage and catwalk, which we all gladly did! He got the party atmosphere going with T.R.O.U.B.L.E., MBDAAM and Life is a Highway. At the end, Danny and the band all left the stage together and returned to our cheers to perform the encore, Livin’ On a Prayer. It was a BLAST!

Since we didn’t have a pre-show m&g we made sure to line up to meet Danny and get an autograph after the show. The line was sooooo long but moved fairly quickly. When our turn was coming we said “hi” to Mike and let him know we were from iheart and that we had traveled very far to see them. He lit up, gave us a big smile, thanked us, and all the ihearts, for everything.

Then…there was Danny right before our eyes. It is a bit of a blur but here is what I think happened. We told him we were from iheart and where we were from. He thanked us again for everything the ihearts do for him. He LOVES all the ihearts! We asked if there was anything else we could do for him. He said we should work on requesting from stations that hadn’t added the song yet. We would have loved to talk longer with him but there was a backlog of signed stuff in front of Danny, and probably evil glares from the people behind us, so we had to move on. Asics and I both shook his hand and left the table.

We found Matt and Ivan around the corner and went to get their autographs as well. Matt is really sweet. [ Comment from Steph: Milgokey is crushin' just a little on Matt, Danny better watch out ] Matt said he and Brandon were going to be with Danny at the Opry the next evening. We told him we would see him there from our front row seats. Ivan was not going to be at the Opry but we did get his autograph and one of his recently released CD’s. What a cool guy.

Time for some pictures!

Tuesday, August 24 – another bright, sunny Gokey day! Asics, Steph and I made the 4 plus hour return trip to Nashvegas. It is so much easier to drive a long way when you are in anticipation of a Danny Gokey concert, have lots of Danny music in the car and great iheart companions to share the journey We arrived in plenty of time to locate our third hotel in 4 days. We freshened up, grabbed a bite to eat downtown and headed over to the Historic Ryman Auditorium. We met up with cindymenn, a mostly iheart lurker and occasional poster. She was so excited to see Danny. I think we may see her at future events. Hi cindymenn!

We all found our seats, Asics and I in the front, Steph a bit further back but turned out she was right behind cindymenn. The show started and Danny was up second. He came out to loud cheers and went right into MBDAAM. He sounded amazing and looked so comfortable and relaxed. During the song he looked down at Asics and me and waved. So cute! Next he sang CNT (setting up for a third single maybe??) and then IWNSG which he dedicated to anyone who has lost someone and to all service men and women who have given their lives serving our country. His voice sounded so rich and smooth and he looked great in that multi-zipper white shirt I like so much.

He received very enthusiastic applause and cheers from the crowd after each song. Danny’s three songs were over way too fast and he was gone The show continued with the other artists and I have to say, having been a country music fan for a few years now, it was all really, really great. The Grand Ole Opry musicians are all very professional and put on an awesome show. It really is quite an honor for Danny, the new guy, to be performing at the Opry.

Just one more tidbit to share. During intermission, we stood up and were looking for where Steph and cindymenn were seated. All of a sudden we hear, “hey ya’ll” and it’s Matt calling out to us from a few rows away as he was leaving. What a sweetheart to remember us! [ Comment from Steph: see what I mean? ]

One more non-Danny tidbit. After the show was over we were walking past the alley next to the Ryman and saw a large gathering of people. Being ones who need to know what’s going on all the time (probably why we like IheartDG so much ), we decided to check it out. We wouldn’t want to miss a possible Danny sighting. It turned out to be Danny’s label-mate Chris Young signing autographs and taking pics with fans. Not one to miss an opportunity, I got my Chris Young autographed program and a pic with him. He’s really tall! Wish it had been Danny though. Maybe next time

Picture time again!

The whole trip was an amazing experience and I am so glad I was able to share it with such lovely iheart friends. This may become habit forming. Just ask Jan and Toni.

So you see we behaved like perfect ladies while we were in Nashville. We did nearly fall out of our chairs laughing though when we got back to the hotel and read what some ihearts ( ) were imagining we were up to in Nashvegas. My, my, what wild and over active imaginations some of you have!! Hmmm, some of those stories would actually make great country songs. Think about it.

Just for fun…guess who?