King George.

Live music is my lifeblood.

I've seen every one from Def Leppard to Britney Spears, Eagles to Ricky Martin, Billy Ray Cyrus to The Fray, Bruno Mars to Carrie Underwood.... and when I found out George Strait was going on tour for the last time I knew seeing him was a MUST.

Lucky for me, he was going to be in Louisville, just a couple hours south of Indy! And double whammy, my awesome mama had scooped up tickets when they went on sale while I was gallivanting around Australia back in November.

When March finally rolled around, we loaded into the car and headed southbound one Friday after work for a weekend of gambling, good music, and girl time.

I'm glad I've got a mother and a cousin's-wife (not to be confused with sister-wife) who love country music as much as this girl... they're some of the best concert mate's around! 

They had the stage in the very middle of the place, and Jorge spent a little time on each side, which was awesome because everyone got a little piece of the action!

I think my exact words after the first encore were "I forgot how many hits he has had!", for an old boy he sure put on a helluva show. And the little Tom Petty diddy he threw out at the very end of course tied the love knot for me. If this truly was his last tour ever, I'll be disappointed I only saw him once, but I'm glad I had that opportunity!

We stayed at the casino, so I'll let you all guess how much time I logged at the roulette tables. I only walked away about $20 down at the end though, thankfully. Here's to hoping my Vegas trip in a few weeks will have better odds.

After the St. Paddy's stress working all week, driving down to Louisville, the concert on Friday night, gambling in every minute of free time I could find, shopping all over Bardstown Rd and the outlet malls, I can only tell you how wiped out I was when we got back into town. All in favor of extending weekends by adding an additional Sunday say AYE. Aye.

Take it easy

I grew up on classic rock.

My mom is a hairstylist, always working on Saturdays. So growing up my dad would load me and my brother up and off we'd go to spend the day at the body shop while he worked on cars. I remember him pulling my hair into pigtails, buckling me into the bucket seats in the back of the s10 and singing along to Tom Petty on the half hour drive. "the tree's fallllllin...." was my 7-year old self's rendition of Free Fallin.

I'd play with my Barbies on the empty jack stands while he bending and twisted and beat on the metal bodies of cars the next bay over. Those Saturdays are where I earned my appreciation for classic rock. Classic rock and the smell of brake parts cleaner.

One of my friends gifted me quite possibly one of the greatest birthday gifts I've ever received.... tickets to the Eagles concert the weekend of my birthday.

Good tickets!

All night long I garnered remarks about how young I was, and how no one expected me to be an Eagles fan. But I just shrugged them off and told em my daddy raised me right!

It was a seriously awesome concert, although the crowd was understandably mellow compared to the concerts I am used to ha! I'm so glad I got the chance to see them once in my lifetime though!

On being That Girl.

2012.

2013. 

I noticed something while deleting photos the other day. The Zippo Lighter app still proves to be the MVP on my iPhone.

And maybe I owe an apology to my friends, for always being THAT person who insists on whipping out my lighter at every concert.

    

Moonshine Jungle

Had a little family bonding time in the moonshine jungle last night!

My cousin got us suite passes to Bruno Mars, so us girls rushed out of work and headed downtown for dinner and drinks followed by a night of booty shaking!

He honestly put on one of the best shows I have seen in a while. I always forget how many songs he's had out. It was so much fun, and his band is AWESOME! They never stood still, and the audience never sat down.

Not to mention Bruno himself is cute as heck. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the next time he comes in town

twist off, sip a little, pass it around

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that we would be taking the Bustache to Luke Bryan again this year.

Sure, I had already seen this concert once this year... every thing is always better the second time around though, isn't it? I still can't decide if I love Florida-Georgia Line or Luke Bryan more. I suppose I can spread my love three ways though.

So Sunday afternoon thirteen of us climbed aboard for our 'stache ride. And boy what a ride it was.

With three full coolers it didn't take long for it to become one heck of a good time! Our driver, Rico, turned the tunes up and we headed on down the highway.

Fireball, moonshine and Loopy were all being passed around.

What do you even say after that? I feel like the pictures speak more than I ever could.

And the best photo of the entire night.... because if you ask the beer guy if you can stick your head in his cart to cool off, he is surprisingly TOTALLY cool with it

 

Another year, another Kenny in the books

I can't recall the last summer that didn't involve a Kenny concert. What do you say about a Kenny concert? They're always a good time, that's a given. So we'll just let this be a photojournalastic approach. (I'll go ahead and acknowledge that I have the most gorgeous friends, hands down)

This post could also be titled: the time I rerouted an oncoming migraine with 3 sequential shots of Jack.

 

Dirt Road Diaries

Do you ever just have a name pop in your head. Like when you're using the restroom at some run of the mill pizza joint, in small town USA before a Luke Bryan concert, and you suddenly convince yourself that CLEARLY that name (Lorenzo, if you were wondering)is the name of your server, why ELSE would you be thinking of Lorenzo. No? Just me?

Sorry, just had to share that side story. His name was actually Carlos, by the way. And when I asked him to surprise me with a drink, I'm fairly certain what he brought back was grape koolaid and vodka.

Anyways, back in the sweet heart of summer, LT got me hooked on this new band he had heard (you know how those country boys are, they love their twangy music)

And when we heard that new band was coming to this little bar in Indianapolis I immediately bought us tickets and then he got sent out to someotherstate with his job and well, me and my friends had a blast without him.

But he was still bummed he missed them.

So when I heard Florida Georgia Line was opening for Luke Bryan on his Dirt Road Diaries tour, and their first tour date was a few hours outside of Indy, I quickly swooped up floor seats as soon as they went on presale.

HOLLA.

We had such a good time, it was such a high energy show... and when Luke Bryan busted out Bruno Mars it was bliss!

I knew we would have decent seats, being floor level, but they had set up the stage with a walkway and then it went out like an I... so we actually ended up being 2 rows back from that, which meant SUPER close to those handsome fellas.
Handsome fella I mean. Referring to LT, the boyfriend, of course, not Luke Bryan. Handsome. I was close to him all concert. Ahhem.

Don't judge, but I may be going to see the same show when they come to Indy this summer too. HA! Obbbsessseddddd.
 

Tip it Back

LT and I have this thing where we get excited about non-mainstream country singers and immediately make the other listen to a song when we stumble upon it and deem it great...

Well early on in the summer his flavor of the month was some band called Florida-Georgia Line. (Hah, hilarious saying that now since they've skyrocketed on the charts lately)

Lo and behold I OBVIOUSLY fell in love with them and immediately made all my friends listen. And when we heard they were going to be playing at the Tin Roof in Indy a bunch of us scooped up the $5 tickets.

Casey and I went there immediately after work (because we're nerdy like that) and got to see the guys of FGL setting up the stage and just hanging out, we had some drinks and waited for the rest of the gang to arrive.

(of course we had to carry on the tradition of the Summer of Pabst)

 

 Easily one of the funnest concerts I've ever been to. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to their like 8 songs on repeat. I can't wait for their actual CD to come out in early December!