I warn you that this may be longwinded and very detailed and possibly boring to some, but oh well, I have a lot to say as I had a wonderful day/night with Keith and Carrie!
I live about 15 minutes from Rupp Arena, so most of my day was spent pretty leisurely, getting ready for the concert and making sure I had everything (tickets, camera, etc) ready to go. My husband was gone for the day to his daughter's softball game, and my two friends attending the concert with me didn't get off work until 5, so I was pretty much on my own the whole afternoon and until the concert. I wanted to get to Rupp Arena early to have plenty of time to pick up my meet and greet pass at will call, and also to buy a little something for Carrie at the Civic Center shops. I was worried about having anything to say to her and just going blank or mumbling hi, so I thought I would get her a little present to have something to talk about. So, I left my house around 4, was in Rupp Arena by 4:30, with 3 1/2 hours until concert time.
I picked up my M&G pass, went ahead and bought my Carrie and Keith t-shirts and took them back to my car, and set out to find Carrie a gift. There is a Hallmark and an Old KY Chocolate store in Rupp, so I decided to go with a KY themed gift to kind of welcome her to Lexington. There are 3 main things I think of when I think about KY - horse racing, bourbon, and University of Kentucky basketball. So, I got Carrie a Christmas ornament that had a race horse on it and said KY, a bottle of bourbon sauce (as close to real bourbon as I was willing to get) that is in a Maker's Mark bottle, and some chocolate that was UK themed. I also got a blank card at Hallmark and tried to write a little note to Carrie, but it's incredibly hard to cram everything you want to say to someone you may only meet once into a little card. I hope she got to read it, but I know it didn't say everything I wanted it to.
A little before 6, I headed up to the area we were told to go to for the Meet & Greet. I chitchatted with a guy who was there by himself from Cincinnatti, and eventually made friends with a girl from Rochester, NY in line as well. I was quite nervous and was afraid I was going to say something stupid to Carrie (which I eventually did I think - more on that later). Sometimes I think she probably thinks it is weird that girls her age (I'm about 3 years older than her) are such big fans of her. Guys and little/teen girls make sense, but it's kinda hard for a married woman like me to be like "I love you Carrie!" and not feel a little silly. I felt a little silly anyway, because I was the only person that I could see had a gift for Carrie other than one guy who brought her roses. When it got closer to M&G time (6:30), Matt came out and started taking in different groups. I was so proud of myself for recognizing him and told the guy I met who he was and how he knew Carrie. Matt took in the people going to both M&G's (Keith & Carrie) first, radio M&G winners second, then fan club members, and there were some people with a "CM" on their pass and I don't know what that meant, but they went in last. After a few minutes standing lined up in the room where the meet and greet was, they brought in Carrie, yay! She looked gorgeous as usual (but with her new bangs), and had on an all black outfit, sparkly belt, and her tall boots. They had a backdrop (like prom or something) for the pictures and just had Carrie standing in front of it.
When it was finally my turn to get up to Carrie, I gave her the gift and told her that since I figured she didn't get much time to do souveneir shopping, I had gotten her a few things that represented what KY was famous for. I think I may have said a little bit about what was in the bag, mentioned the Maker's Mark, but was like "it's not real bourbon". She said "Oh, thank you", and then asked who to make the autograph out to. New Carrie fact alert - I told her to make it out to Stacey, and she was like "My name was almost Stacey." I think I said "Really", and she said "My parents had picked out Stacey, but my sisters wanted to name me Carrie". (Later, of course, it hit me that it made sense - Carole must have been going with an "S" theme for their names.) Then cue my stupid remark - "Yeah, my mom let some kid name me too." (The story behind this oh-so-eloquent statement was that a neighbor that was good friends with my parents had a granddaughter and she said she liked or mentioned the name Stacey and my mom liked it. Not exactly my mom letting "some kid" name me.) Carrie then said, "Well, at least mine wasn't some kid, it was my sisters." I think after that I replied "True", realized how stupid my comment sounded, didn't have anymore time to talk really, so I didn't get to say how much I enjoyed meeting her or that I was looking forward to seeing her first headlining concert (for me) or congrats on the Opry or pretty much anything. I certainly hope I didn't offend Carrie with the "some kid" comment, because I wasn't insinuating that her sisters were just "some kids", but in a 1-2 minute M&G, you just don't have time to explain the back story behind a comment.
In the card I gave her I did say congrats on the Opry and how much her music means to me, so I hope she reads it. Because in the meet and greet I didn't exactly get to say any of that or ask her anything about her. So, anyway, we did learn a new cool fact about Carrie from this, and hopefully someday I'll get to try again and not be so awkward! I'm still very happy to have my picture with Carrie and the personalized autograph. They are something I'll treasure forever and if I get a next time, I'll just forget the gift and focus more on Carrie!
As for the concert - I know a lot of you have either read a review or been to one, so I'll try to spare any details that aren't new. I went with two of my best friends, one of which has been with me to see Carrie twice before and the other who had never seen her. My friend Ondi (the latter friend) can be very critical of well, anything, sometimes, so I was a little worried about what she might say. She did have Carrie's Carnival Ride CD, though, and I quickly learned that Ondi had listened to it enough to know the words to several of the songs and her favorite was "FOTF". She was a little wearied by the wardrobe changes, but she really enjoyed the concert I could tell. She especially loved JAD, because it makes her think of a guy she knows who spent some time in Iraq. She said it makes her get choked up every time she hears it. Her other favorite was Carrie singing Paradise City - she was belting it along with her. My friend Staci always thinks Carrie is good, but she is a sweet heart and rarely says anything bad about anyone. (Thinking now - a better response to Carrie saying we almost had the same name, yes, it was a popular name in the 80's - my best friend's name is Staci too.) Carrie was awesome, and incredible, and it was great to finally see her in a full length show and not just as an opener. I would have been happy to see her perform for the whole night, but I love Keith too, so I was looking forward to that as well. I particularly loved hearing her do IKYW live (AMAZING!) and of course, loved Paradise City, because I LOVE rocker Carrie.
Keith's concert was amazing as always - it's the fourth time I've seen him. He is an amazing entertainer, a great vocalist, and his show has become so much more interactive with the audience. Plus, he was taping part of his footage for his live DVD at the Lexington show. I don't have the picture posted yet, but the coolest thing was that Nicole Kidman was there and I saw her! My friends and I were sitting in one of the side sections, almost directly across from the little circular stage at the end of the catwalk. The girl sitting in front of Staci had been chatting with her all evening, and told her that Nicole was on the other side of the circular stage, right across from us! Staci told me, and the lights were up enough that we looked over and we could see Nicole! Even cooler for me was that Carrie and Matt were standing in front of Nicole! I don't know how long Nicole had been out there, but when people started noticing it was her (and I think one or two people tried to approach her) she finally had security take her out of the arena. I also think she didn't want to take attention away from Keith, because when people realized it was her, everyone was looking at her and not paying any attention to him. However, Carrie and Matt stayed there and watched Keith for quite a while! I guess until she had to go get ready for the duet. Carrie was cracking me up, because she was dancing and seemed to be enjoying Keith's show a lot! She did finally sit down on a stool or something, because I could see Matt and just the top of her head. I guess people started noticing her too. I have a very bad picture (the zoom on my point & shoot is horrible), but I can try to post it later and circle where Carrie and Nicole were. Keith's concert was great as always - he brought a girl onstage from Hazard, KY, and let her play one of his guitars. She told him she knew the solo from "Raise the Barn" and surprisingly, she was incredible! I think Keith himself was surprised by how good she was since she didn't look much older than 18, if that. He did his usual, come up in the lower arena area and played and gave away his guitar. If we had been just one section closer to the stage, it would have been our aisle that he was in to do that, oh well! Of course the duet with Keith and Carrie was incredible and everyone was singing along. Carrie wore a Keith t-shirt (the same one I bought!) when she came out to do the duet. I was secretly hoping she would come back out at the end since it was the last show for them, but she didn't. I think my friend Ondi was disappointed too, because she said she thought Carrie would come out at the end. The last two cool things about Keith's show was of course, when he dedicated "Got It Right This Time" to Nicole - he pointed over to her and they flashed the camera on her. She kind of put her hands over her face and shook her head, like "don't show me", but it was sweet. Then at the end, he kind of gave a little speech about how much he has enjoyed this tour and thanked everyone who had come out, his fan club members, and was just talking about how blessed he was. He ended the show with "Everybody" and near the end of the song, he had tears running down his face. It was incredibly touching. It is wonderful to see someone who is so connected to their music and audience and who appreciates everything he has been given. It was a great way to end an amazing night!
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