After the week I had at worked, which was just so much fun with the GREAT POWER OUTAGE OF 2003, I was so glad to
finally get out of work on Saturday. Just before I ran out of my store, we had received a phone call from one of our other stores.
They were passing along the info that LIPA (the company that supplies 90% of Long Island with electricity) will be doing some
rolling brownouts. It was just a nice way of letting us know that there was a chance that we could lose our electricity for about two
hours as LIPA was just trying to find a way to cope with the high demand of electricity. It seems since the BLACKOUT on
Thursday, Long Island wasn’t getting any electricity from the Grid. LIPA was only able to give what they were generating at
their own plants, which apparently isn’t enough for its 110 million customers. 110 customers, no wonder Jen and I have such
problems getting off this dang island, it’s too phreaking congested. So needless to say, I ran out of that store. If the lights went
out while I was still there, I never would have left. If the lights were on when I left, I wouldn’t feel guilty one bit. As it turns
out, they never lost power that night.
Wait a second, this review is supposed to be our roadtrip to see MG. Okay, here goes, we got to our hotel in Columbia, MD with
plenty of time to enjoy some pool time, and we definitely did enjoy. Ya’ll need to ask Jen about the sights there. I never did
ask her if she had any nightmares. In the past we had always relied on the use of solo cups to hide what we were drinking, but our
trip to Clearfield, PA taught us something new. When we stopped to get dinner while driving through Delaware, we got these really
cool cups, complete with straws, and they can hold two beers at once. We put these cups to use at the pool. I was having a
Kentucky Lemonade and Jen was doing Jim with cola. The pool was really nice, but the hot tub was much better. Naturally, we
stayed there until after the pool was closed. Can anyone say PUSHY NU YAWKERS?
Since it seems I can never sleep on a roadtrip, I was up at 7 am and went for my jog/walk. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any
trucks or buses this time. Jen really appreciates the fact that I now leave the room when I wake up so dang early, but unfortunately
the show was starting at 2 PM and she was warned a week ahead of time that tailgating was to start at 11 am. I think we actually
got to the venue at 11:15 with our McDonald’s breakfast. So, we ate our breakfast and drank our orange juice while sitting in
the bright Maryland sun. Once we were done, we filled up our tailgating cups with drinks containing Jim and decided to go for a
walk. The grounds surrounding the venue were quite pretty. I think the prettiest site were the two port-a-potty’s (the sight of
a port-a-potty always reminds me of Nicholle) we found on the north side of the venue. Yeah we found those just before we found
the buses. With knowing where the buses were, we decided to head back to the car, well that and the fact that I now needed a refill.
With the Clearfield show we knew two other people who were going to this show, Nicholle and her friend Holly. For this show in
MD, we didn’t know anyone. MG played in Louisville, KY the night before the Maryland show, I knew a bunch of people
going to that one and really wanted to go to Kentucky for that reason, but we just couldn’t swing it. It was a seven-hour drive
from Louisville to Baltimore and there was no way we could do that on the day of a show, especially an early one. It’s
been a long time since we went to a show and weren’t meeting up with anyone there. We just hung out by the car. While
sitting there catching some sun and a buzz, I mentioned that we really don’t know for sure that MG would be second to last on
the list of six performers for the show. There was a chance that they could perform second or third. I personally thought that they
should be the headliner, but that went to Eddie’s little brother, John Michael Montgomery. After I put the idea in Jen’s
head, she decided (all on her own) to go ask some girls that were tailgating a few cars away from us if they knew the order of
performers. As it turns out, they were there to see the same performers we were, with more of an emphasis on MG, just like Jen
and me. They had said the last three performers would be Terri Clark, MG, and JMM.
Eventually, Jen had to go ask them another question. I don’t remember what that question was, but this time I followed her
over there. So, shortly after that I find myself playing a card game I’d never played before, A**hole. We played three games of
it. It was a lot of fun. For the second round, I naturally got to be the a**hole and for the third game I got to be president. I have no
idea what I was doing, but it sure was fun and had passed catching a buzz way before the first game. After the third game we got
ready to head into the venue.
It truly is funny when you get your pictures back and you get reminded of what you did. I really didn’t think I was that bad,
but apparently I forgot some stuff. While walking into the venue, I decided to take a bunch of pictures. I don’t remember
taking them or posing for them. Yep, pour me another one. I was truly trashed when I walked into the venue. After having our
tickets taken at the gate, we headed to the merchandise counter. For some reason, I didn’t have any MG merchandise and had
decided that I would buy something this trip. I immediately asked for the tour shirt, and before I would buy the dang thing I felt
the need to tell the kid working the counter all the MG shows I had been at. After that we headed over to the radio station booth.
As if I had ever listened to that station, but I am a member of their e-team, lol. After we walked away from the radio station, I had
the need to look at my ticket.
It was at this point that things went quite awry. I couldn’t find my dang ticket to sit on the floor. Well, talk about sobering
up quick. Jen and I looked all over the three places we had already been, the ticket gate, merch counter, and the radio booth. We
couldn’t find it. I was so distraught. She went over to the gate and talked to some really nice guy, and my new bestest friend,
over there and he said as long as I knew my exact seat location that they could have someone escort me to my seat. Yikes, I couldnâ
€™t remember that. Jen and I were in two different sections, row numbers, and completely different seat numbers. I was so
screwed. I knew one of our seats was one hundred something and the other was 20 something. Jen had the 20 something ticket
which meant I had the one hundred something. I had to know the exact seat number. Well this was the sobering part, trying to
remember what row and seat number, I thought I was in row E while jen was in row D, which apparently is the setup for one of the
shows this weekend, not for the MG show. I had asked the nice man if there was someway I could get to the internet, that I could
check my ticketmaster account and see the exact location, but there was no internet connection at the venue. That’s when it hit
me, call a friend. Well, SUPERFAN just reinforced her nickname for me on Sunday. Sylvia you really saved the day for me, thank
you so much. She was home and currently logged on when she answered her cell phone for me. She was able to give me the
information I needed, which wasn’t easy. Since I kept insisting that I was in row E and not row B. I just remember these
words, “Ally, those are your seats for Marion, not Maryland.� Now this gets even better, while she’s telling me what I
really thought was wrong, I’m looking at the ticket stubs that are still in the envelope that the tickets came in. Well get this, I
didn’t lose my ticket, and the kid at the gate took the wrong part. I had the part that they were supposed to take and it was
folded under the other part and it had all the seat info, which proved that Sylvia was right and that I was just drunk, go figure. So
we showed this to my new bestest friend, Randy, which he signed and told me that I shouldn’t have a problem, but if I did he
gave me his operator number and if that still didn’t work, to walk back over to the gate and he would have someone escort me to
my seat.
Well thanks to Randy and Sylvia, I didn’t have one problem getting to the area where my seat was. I never did actually sit in
my seat though. I got to sit with Jen the whole night. She really didn’t sit in her seat either, except for maybe five minutes.
When we first got there while Brian Mccomas was leaving the stage, we sat in two seats at the end of my row, there were just too
many people to climb over, since I was right at center stage. Just before Terri came on stage, someone came to claim the two seats
that we had found but that was okay. Naturally, we found two more end seats, this time in Jen’s row. Let me tell you, these
were really good seats, I was quite happy with them.
You can tell that the MG part of the show was getting close to starting, all of the band members had been making their way to the
stage. They played almost all the songs that they did in Clearfield. They weren’t on stage for two hours this time, but it must
have been at least 90 minutes. Not only do Troy and Eddie seem to have so much fun while they are on stage performing, but their
band does too. They crack me up, I have seen them 10 times in concert now and twice at fan fair, and I can honestly say that I have
never seen them do a bad show, or even just an off night. Nor have I ever seen them, from my viewpoint anyhow, be in a bad
mood. They are always having fun. I believe it’s infectious. The crowd sees them having such a great time and can’t help
but join them. Although that crowd at Clearfield was a bit strange, still can’t believe they sat through an mg show, but
whatever.
Now without saying anything bad. I just need to state the facts or at least ponder on the situation a bit. Apparently, Troy and
Eddie forgot to lock-up the Jim Beam party bus before they headed out to the stage. When the next performer hit the stage, and Iâ
€™m not using his name, something just didn’t seem right. He seemed to be having a difficult time moving, and this was 30
seconds into his first song. I remember he had a broken leg/ankle back in 2001 and it didn’t heal right, so they re-broke it. So, at
first I thought maybe that’s why he seemed to be having a difficult time walking/moving. Anyhow, I had seen this person only
one other time live and that was at fanfair. I wasn’t happy with his performance at fan fair. Well, I didn’t drive over four
hours to Maryland to see this person. I came to see his older brother. A crew guy handed him his guitar and he had a hard time
getting the guitar strap on. He gave up and left it hanging on his shoulder, when it should have went over his head to support the
guitar correctly. When the song was over, and he could concentrate on thing at a time, he tried again to get the strap over his head.
With that, his hat flew off his head; it was at this point that Jen and I knew something was quite wrong. I’m not sure if the rest
of the crowd caught on at this point yet. He almost fell over trying to pick his hat up, then was wobbly putting the hat back on his
head, and still had a hard time with the guitar strap.