Nashville Day 3: "Like I Love Country Music"

Before we got to Nashville, we had big plans of going to both the day and night concerts. After the first day, we were already tired. We decided to re-evaluate our schedule and go for a little bit mid-day just for the acts we really wanted to see. We knew this meant we wouldn't get a seat in the VIP section but that was ok since we weren't staying long. We got there about 10:30a and found a place not far from the stage.

Soon my favorite of the day, Larry Fleet, came on stage, followed by Melissa's favorite, Niko Moon.

After him, we walked back to the condo and spent the afternoon in the a/c, alternating between watching TV and napping. We ventured back out again for the last two acts - Ingrid Andress and ERNEST. We were able to grab a table in VIP. I decided to try the drink that all the cool, young girls were drinking.

I saw a meme that described it perfectly. It tasted like "drinking TV static while someone screams the name of a fruit from another room."

We walked a couple of blocks over to Deacon's New South for our early dinner. We started it off by splitting a shrimp cocktail.

I had the beef short ribs with scallop risotto.

Melissa had the pork chop and grits.

After dinner, it was time to trek across the bridge again, get our floor wristbands, go to the bathroom, grab our waters, and be in our seats by the start of the show. This would become our nightly routine. There was a group in front of us with tickets all four nights as well. They were from all over the country but met each other at a past CMA Fest and meet back there every year. It was two couples and a few single people who changed in and out over the weekend. We were just glad they seemed like cool people to interact with every night.

The 90s star opening the show tonight was Deana Carter who sang one of my high school anthems, "Strawberry Wine."

Next up was Kelsea Ballerini who looked awesome and put on a great show.

Then Thomas Rhett

Followed by Gabby Barrett whose song "I Hope" we love but we definitely weren't loving that outfit.

Next up was Cole Swindell. He was performing a longer show at another venue the next night so unfortunately, we only got to hear a couple of his songs.

Lainey Wilson joined him for a duet.

Like Cole, Carly Pearce came out and sang only a couple of songs. We had actually just seen her the week before at the Kenny Chesney concert in Dallas. She reminds me so much of Faith Hill. The surprise guest of the night was Wynonna Judd joining Carly on stage.

The closer for the night was Kane Brown.

As he was finishing up, fireworks went off over the stadium to end the night in style.

After the show, we followed the crowd back over the bridge and then set about our plan to Uber back to the condo. We had to walk a block or so off Broadway to even get an Uber since they had all the streets downtown closed off. And since the concert just let out, Ubers were scarce so we had to wait about 40 minutes. A cop had stopped a drunk woman at our pick up spot and was holding her until someone came to get her. She was crying and carrying on so at least we had some entertainment while we waited. Finally the Uber showed up to take us a mile down the road for $40. Waiting so long for such an expensive Uber was a frustrating end to the night so we vowed again to come up with a different solution for the last couple of nights.