Friday night of Summerfest - Sugarland Concert

Friday afternoon we opened our trailer as always. In the evening CMT was filming for Sugarland's concert and our Cross Country Crew got to throw out free CMT merchandise from stage before the show. After our swag launch we got to watch the show from the "CMT Extras Pit". The pit was for casted extras...basically people were casted to be the fans for the filming of the concert. We were down in the pit with the cameras during the show and there is a possibility that we might be in the final production...it airs in early August so watch for the Summerfest productions on CMT in early August and you might see me! I was able to get lots of cool pictures from the show...it was so much fun, especially considering that Sugarland is one of my current favorites:-) Tonight is Sara Evan's show and then tomorrow is Big & Rich and we might be down in the pit for those shows as well...we'll see!

Down in Sugarland:-)

Sugarland Concert Pictures:
1. Matt, Skip and I in the "CMT Extras" pit

2. Sugarland

3. Kristian - Hey ya!

4. Jennifer - She ain't settlin'

5. SUGARLAND!!!

Down in Sugarland - Part 2

Pictures:
1. Sugarland and most of the band
2. Jennifer and Kristian are AWESOME performers
3. Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush
4. Jennifer Nettles
5. Jennifer playing a little acoustic

Summerfest Fun on Thursday night

Thursday was our load-in day for Summerfest. Oddly our CMT trailer is located next to the classic rock stage and not the stage where our filming will be taking place, but it's fun anyway. We opened up our trailer in the afternoon on Thursday and then in the evening went to some of the shows. We listened to Phil Vassar and REO Speedwagon. The cool thing about Summerfest is that it's the world's largest music festival and every genre of music is played there. There are also so many stages throughout the festival grounds. There are about five main stages and then four more smaller ones as well. During REO's show, there was a fireworks show. We sat on top of our trailer and had an awesome view of the fireworks and then got carried away taking pictures under the fireworks:-)

Pictures from Thursday night at Summerfest

Pictures from Thursday night at Summerfest:

1. Matt and I watching the fireworks show

2. Me under the fireworks show

3. Skip and Matt loving the fireworks

4. Me, Skip and our new Milwaukee friend, Christina watching the fireworks

5. REO Speedwagon playing at the Classic Rock Stage

Upcoming Schedule!

July 5-7: Bridgeport Benedum Festival: Bridgeport, West Virginia
July 12-15: USG Sheetrock 400 (NASCAR): Joliet, Illinois
July 18-22: Country Thunder: Twin Lakes, Wisconsin
July 27: Ozark Empire Fair: Springfield, Missouri
July 31: Tim McGraw & Faith Hill Soul 2 Soul Tour: Denver, Colorado
August 14-18: Caldwell Night Rodeo: Caldwell, Idaho
August 21-25: Benton Franklin Fair and Rodeo: Kennewick, Washington
September 6: Hick Chick Event: Las Cruses, New Mexico
September 13-15: West Texas Fair and Rodeo: Abilene, Texas
September 19-22: Four States Fair and Rodeo: Texarkana, Arkansas
September 24-29: Arklahoma State Fair: Fort Smith, Arkansas

That's what we know for now, but I am sure we'll have a few more added in there as well as a few more events to finish out the month of October and our Cross Country Tour!

Milwaukee fun before Summerfest begins

We got to Milwaukee on Monday and have had the past couple days to veg out and check things out in the city. Milwaukee is a lot larger then I expected and there is a lot to do and see. Last night we went to a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game. They were playing the Houston Astros. Brewers fans LOVE their team and the game was fun, especially because Milwaukee won.

The whole city is getting ready for Summerfest, which is the largest music festival worldwide. Artists of all genres come to play at Summerfest so there are obviously also fans of every genre that will be here as well. The festival actually lasts about ten days, but CMT is only here for four of those days. The cool thing about this event for us is that our production crews will be on site to film for Sugarland, Big & Rich and Sara Evans. I am really excited for that, especially Sugarland...they are pretty much my newest favorite country act. Also, after our work shift, it looks like we will get to be "extras" in the crowd at the concert so that should be a lot of fun. Tomorrow's load-in day at the event and a long day of entertaining the fans, but I am looking forward to it!

Milwaukee and the Brewer's game

In the pictures:

1. Milwaukee cityscape

2. Skip and Matt in front of Miller Park

3. Skip, Matt and I at the Brewers/Astros game

4. The Brewers playing the field

5. Yay for the Brewers...they got the W this time!

Country USA was held in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Skip, Matt and I were the crew that went to Oshkosh while Jamie and John headed out west to Colorado. Jamie, Matt and I will only be split up for two weeks and then it's us three for the remainder of the summer.

As for the event...we were actually not even set up inside the event grounds so we had to make due with what we were dealt. We had a very small crowd to work with each day, but we did manage to get a few karaoke singers throughout the week.

Although the event was located in Oshkosh, we stayed in Appleton, which was 20 minutes north of the event site. At dinner one night, Skip and I made friends with our waiter, who then introduced us to his friends and we got to hang out with a few of the locals in Appleton.

Since we were staying in Appleton we were only 30 minutes from Green Bay, so of course Matt and I drove to Green Bay one evening for dinner. It was much more residential then I expected...in fact there was a neighborhood that butted up to Lambeau field. The football stadium had just been redone and we had dinner inside at Curly's pub.

Pictures from Appleton, Oshkosh and Green Bay

In the pictures:
1. Our new friend Jonathan, who LOVED to karaoke. Check out the sweet vintage Britney Spears T-shirt he was sporting!
2. Our favorite Wisconsin friends. These three couples came by our trailer everyday and they were so nice and fun. They sang a lil' rendition of It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere for us.
3. Our new friends in Appleton: Garrett, Kyle, Me, Matt, Dave and Dizzle in front.
4. Lambeau field in Green Bay
5. Me in front of one of the statues outside of Lambeau field.

More CMA Music Festival Photos

In the pictures:

1. Billy Ray with his manager (his bro) and his fans going crazy for him.

2.The crowd rushes into the Convention Center as the doors open. They would literally run in the doors each day to line up for autographs and photos with the stars.

3. Our mass amount of people waiting for the green bags we were giving away.

4. Billy Ray Cyrus with the CMT staff that was on-hand during his signing session.

CMA Music Festival

CMA Music Fest was four full days of craziness. CMT had two trailers set up for the weekend of festivities. One trailer was set up in the street at 2nd and Broadway. This trailer was primarily used to promote URGE, our music download provider, and to give out free stuff. Matt was on location at this trailer the majority of the time. The other trailer was located in the Nashville Convention Center...aka mainstream mayhem. The essence of the setup in the convention center from the eyes of the fans is to meet some of the stars, get autographs, pictures and free stuff. At our trailer we had several people signing autographs throughout the four days. Two of our hosts, Lance Smith and Katie Cook, signed autographs as well as Bucky Covington and the one and only Billy Ray Cyrus:-) During the autograph sessions, I was assigned to take photos for the lucky fans that got to meet the stars. I definitely got to "camera shop" considering the numerous amounts of cameras that I had to operate over the weekend. This turned out to be useful by the end of the day on Saturday because my camera broke so I am definitely in need of a new one. We also gave out free green bags to the fans, but only had an alotted amount per day. You wouldn't believe the hysteria that the bags caused. Everyone wanted a free bag and they had higher priority then the tickets for the star autographing signing at times. We heard all kinds of reasoning behind why fans felt they were obligated to get a bag from "my son's in the military" to "a relative just passed away" to women in their 60's "crying" to try to get a bag. Apparently people feel that if they come up with a good enough story that they can get what they want. Also, you wouldn't believe the fans that Billy Ray brought in. They are in LOVE with that guy. People were knocking down partitions that held the crowd back and pushing one another just to get an autograph. Our staff had to link arms with CMA staff and Billy's staff just to keep people from mobbing him on his way out! MADNESS!!! I've posted some pictures that I took before my camera broke. Hopefully I will have more to come later. I am looking to buy a new camera SOON!

Every evening we also hosted the afterhours parties at Paradise Park as well as The Stage. We handed out free koozies and T-shirts at the bars and then also gave away a guitar each night. It was a lot of fun, but it definitely made our days super long. I definitely miss hanging out at the honky-tonks in Nashville though. That is one thing I look forward to doing again once I am living in Nashville and off the road. As for now though, I am really enjoying traveling and looking forward to what the summer will bring.

Also, it looks like we will be in St. Henry for a night as we travel from Wisconsin to West Virginia. It's beginning to look like it might actually be the Sunday of the St. Henry picnic! I believe that Matt, Jamie and I will be staying at my Mom and Dad's for the evening so please call me if you are going to be in St. Henry!

In the pictures:

1. Bucky Covington with the CMT staff after his autograph session

2. Bucky fans taking pictures and crowding around our trailer

3. John Waite, the singer of "Missing You" pointing to himself in the remake of the video featuring Alison Krauss.

4. Skip, Kelli, Matt, me and Danny at Paradise Park for our after hours madness

5. Kelli, me, Jamie and John with Lance Smith, the host of CMT's Top Twenty Countdown

Dukesfest 2007

Things have been super busy for me lately on the road and I haven't had much time to blog but I am going to try and get somewhat caught up. The first weekend in June, after we got back into Nashville, we hosted Dukesfest at the Music City Motorplex. It was crazy! Dukes of Hazzard fans from all over come to Nashville for this one weekend of everything Dukes. There were over 100 replicas of the General Lee plus replicas of the cop car, Cooter's tow truck and anything else you could think of that related to Dukes of Hazzard. EVERYONE was dressed in orange. Each day tons of people would wait in line to get autographs from the cast and then spend the rest of the day conversing with other fans and whatnot. Lance Smith was also doing some live footage from the roof of our trailer for the CMT Top Twenty Countdown. Throughout the day he dressed up like several of the characters and had fun with his shoot. On the last day of Dukesfest a couple of professional stunt drivers did a few stunts for us. One of those drivers was actually the first stunt driver for the show. I have attached a few pictures from the two day extravaganza.

In the pictures:

1. All of the Dukes of Hazzard fans in the grandstands awaiting the stunt show to begin

2. Lance Smith on top of our trailer filming for his weekly Top Twenty Countdown

3. Some of the replica vehicles from the show

4. One of the stunt show stunts

Getting pulled out of the mud!

Country Thunder, Texas

...or should I say Mudfest 2007! So Country Thunder has been held in Arizona and Wisconsin for years, but this was the first year for it to be held in Texas as well. Apparently, part of the reason they chose the location they did for the concert, was because over the past 23 years over Memorial day weekend it hadn't rained over that plot of land...interesting, considering it pretty much rained for four days.

It was madness. The concert was cancelled two of the four days and we had a tornado scare on the first day of the concert. By the second day of the concert, there were HUGE puddles sitting everywhere. We had to buy rain boots just to walk around the place. It kind of stunk because we had to do a downgraded stage show from the roof of our trailer, which resulted in less interaction with the fans.

By the last day of the event, the concert was cancelled and they were evacuating everyone. They had tractors out there pulling people out of the mud. We waited the majority of the afternoon just to get pulled out. Finally, we had a good ol' John Deere tractor hitch up our trailer and pull us out.

Not quite what I expected for our first event, but a good learning experience nonetheless. We are now back in Nashville until mid-June and then we are on the road for good. I've attached some pictures from the muddy madness and other fun stuff!