No-Show Jones....

This weekend was pretty epic. And considering how much the bestie & I are off running around on a road trip or a show --- or basically never home -- that says a lot. 

The bestie hauled it to town Friday afternoon and she & I headed to the George Jones tribute show Friday night. We technically had tickets for the show as soon as they were available, as George’s final show. We were SO stoked to see him again (and then of course P got added to the guest list, which obviously made this even better!)….and then of course, George passed away. We held onto our tickets to see what the show's future was.

with the bestie at the concert!

The show was so well put together – something I didn’t expect with 100 acts. 4 hours, 48 songs.  There were definitely acts that had us scratching our heads (or more like wincing in pain for our ears. Sorry Megadeath fans….I can’t do metal. Adding Jamey Johnson to the mix did not make the song bearable. I can totally appreciate that Jones influenced genres of all kinds, but yikes. There are some genres that don't need to sing a Country Song, and metal is one of them.), but overall, it was fabulous. (Although the photographer in me was dying at the dreadful lighting!)  Obviously, P was the best of the best, it's what happens when you're as awesome as she is.

Among our other personal fave highlights:

-Emmylou Harris. In the "did this really happen" category:  Emmylou Harris seriously sang “If My Heart Had Windows”. Granted - they put her in a group (I totally get why they had to group people together....buuuuut she's Emmylou freaking Harris, people.), but holy crap. You have no idea how I would kill to hear her sing this solo. 

-George Strait. Sigh. And not only did we get to see him, he sang not only my favorite Jones song, but my favorite song by anyone-- “The Grand Tour”. (Seriously, this is like the greatest country song ever written.) We see his full show in March, and I need this to hurry up.  I've pretty much convinced myself I will die if I don't get to hear "Marina Del Ray" live. 

swoon.

-“Two Story House” – this is totally my favorite Tammy & George song.....and no joke, we do it at karaoke every single time we go. (And because people are lame and don't usually know it, Rita always has to be my George Jones.) People always seem to forget about it! Thompson Square sang it, and we immediately freaked out and sang along obnoxiously. (Not that we didn't do that to every song, but the guy beside us was super amused by us during this one.)

-Jessi freakin' Colter! I’ve never been able to see her before, I was SO excited to see her on the bill. I love her!  Fittingly, she was paired with Shooter Jennings, and I loved their version of “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me”.

-Sam Moore singing “Blues Man” was absolutely out of this world. Perfect song for him, he sounded incredible. Definitely one of the top performances of the night.

-The dude behind us. No really.  Aside from singing along with us to pretty much....everything, he was also completely entertaining. Taking advantage of George Strait's nickname of King George....when Strait came out, the guy behind us screamed "KING GEORGE!! WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!" He may have been the greatest concert go-er we've ever sat by. 

-And again: P was beyond amazing, and the best of the night. Duh. She did “Color of the Blues”, which is probably one of the best songs of George’s that she’s actually cut. Everyone used Jones band, but she also brought Emory along with her. So so proud of her! 

Emory & the Queen Bee

And yes, I’m aware my highlights once again show I was born in the wrong generation, because everyone my age was going crazy for folks like Blake & Miranda, or Kid Rock --- while I was geeking out over Emmylou Harris.

On a side note, how ADORABLE are the shot glasses from his show?! We immediately came back to the house and did shots. And it pairs perfect with my Loretta Lynn shot glass. 

Saturday we proceeded to pretty much have the best girls day you can imagine --- well for music nerds like us anyway. They put up George’s monument at his grave on Monday, and since I live 5 minutes from the cemetery, I ran over there to see it unveiled. I can’t begin to stress what a great job they did on this – absolutely beautiful. Since Rita hadn’t seen it, Saturday morning we headed to the store to pick up some Wine Colored Roses (I will give you a cookie if you knew that was a George Jones song! Pretty sure the girl in the floral department thought we were nuts inspecting the colors of all the roses!), and went over to see it, stopping by the mausoleum to pay respects to Tammy. Since last time she came up we paid respects to Conway, Johnny & June, this time we decided to go lay flowers at the grave of another that stole our hearts – Vern Gosdin. 

soooo well done!

love love love him.

I pass this every week, and I use it as a reminder of why I love Nashville.  The sun was shining so beautifully by it that I felt like I needed another picture of it. 

So, it's no secret that for Halloween next year, I'm going as Tammy Wynette & Rita is going as Loretta Lynn since we're going to Dolphie's to celebrate. It's always been our thing, she's the Loretta to my Tammy -- and quite often, I sing more Tammy and she sings more Loretta when we're at Dolphie's. Anyway, we've started researching our costumes this week soooooo at our Starbucks visit this time, we decided to channel our inner country stars ;)

What's a Saturday without hitting the record shop for more vinyl, right? Seriously, it's an addiction. Give me a vinyl record & I will love you forever.

I was going to say our vintage country music was our theme for the weekend, but is there ever really a weekend where it ISN’T our theme? Before heading up to Kentucky, we ran back over to the Johnny Cash Museum to pick up a few pieces of merch for gifts.....and then hit the road with my sis to meet up with Metcalf at Dolphie's for some karaoke! I love love love when my sister goes with us - it's hilarious to see the differences in song choices. I freaked out that Scotty now has "Long-Legged Guitar Pickin Man", while my sister was dying that was a real song. 

the sis

with the bestie!

celebrating Metcalf & Rita's birthdays a little early! (As Rita clutches her Conway Twitty DVD! Score for the best presents ever! She got a Conway t-shirt too!)

with my two favorite girls, my bestie & my sissy! 

This may have been one of our greatest & most creative karaoke sets. Almost every round we did we somehow tied to Jones. Our first rounds were our obligatory Loretta & Tammy sets, but we signed Metcalf up for "Murder on Music Row" (because it's oh so fitting, and mentions the Possum), "He Stopped Loving Her Today", while we took on "If My Heart Had Windows", "A Picture of Me Without You" -- and then brought out stuff like The Judds "Have Mercy" for the simple line of "I could hear you was playing Haggard & Jones"....or Dolly's "Honky Tonk Songs" for the great line of "I've listened to Haggard, ole Hank...and George Jones", and of course "I was Country When Country Wasn't Cool". 

Moving on, it's a short week for the Holidays, and I'm only working two days this week. I say I'm so ready for a few days of doing nothing after a full weekend this past weekend, but obviously that's not going to happen any time soon. Bring on Black Friday shopping! The sis & I have our plans mapped out.....and of course it's going to be freeeeezing this year.  Thank God for Starbucks! 

Happy Monday y'all!