Boy howdy.
Yesterday was the George Strait Country Music Festival out at Riverport Amphitheatre. And we had tickets.
Most of the people there spent the entire day out there, as in from 10:30 am to whenever George Strait finished up.
We went around 6:30 pm to catch the end of the show. We stood in line for something to eat for about thirty minutes (maybe longer.) At least we could hear Alan Jackson performing on the other side of the hill, and we were blessed to have a 38-year old woman (she told us) who'd paid $75 for her tickets (she told us) expound on the fact that she'd stood in line for an hour (she told us) for a piece of pizza, and she didn't care (she told us) if the lady -- a volunteer high school band mom who'd been there serving trashy food since 9:30 am -- said there wasn't any more pizza, she wanted some pizza. She wanted all of us to understand the full extent of her displeasure.
I don't react well to stuff like that. And you should never, ever diss a band mom.
But we eventually ate, found a tiny plot of grass on the hillside we could call our own, and were in place in time for His Straitness.
Some observations:
- Of the twelve (!) guys in the band, only one was not from Texas. Most of them were from "San Antone," which, I guess due to his classic tune "Amarillo," is how George Strait says "San Antonio."
- But amazingly, there was only a 25% cowboy hat contingent in the band. I would've expected at least 66%.
- Country music concerts are always mixed really well. The drummer had an awesome rimshot sound that was like buttah.
- George Strait is OK with me.
- Riverport Amphitheatre is a really poorly designed concert venue, and if I can avoid this summer's "Glam Slam Metal Jam" with Poison, Warrant, Quiet Riot, and Enuff Z'nuff, I will probably never go back.
The "all-day country music festival" format threatens to prevent me from ever again hearing live country music by a big country music star. Not my scene. But at least we tried, and we didn't just stay home and let the tickets go to waste...
