My oldest Daughter’s favorite band in the whole world is Rascal Flatts. She is a die hard fan who is committed to the cause.
Growing up, I never much cared about concerts or even music for that matter, but my daughter is passionate about it and has quite an itunes library. She could sing before she could talk and dance before she could walk.
Not only did I not grow up caring much about music, I cared even less about country music. Ellis’ love for Rascal Flatts however opened up my eyes to an entirely new genre of music that I actually quite enjoy. Country music is full of life’s lessons, with a general common sense approach to most of life’s ups and downs.
Have you ever listened to any country lyrics recently? Last Spring, we got quite busy which meant that everyone at Carson had to pull their weight plus that of about two more people to get all of our orders out on time. I was recruited to do “second proofing” which, you guessed it, is the second time we proof a wrapper before it is wrapped around a Hershey’s bar. Anyway, I was in Gail Hale’s office doing my duties, and she listens to country music, so that meant I also listened to country music. Well let me tell you, I got quite an education in there listening to those country lyrics ( although I wasn’t a very good proofer I hear..)
I’ll save some of the more sultry lyrics for later, since this is a G rated blog, but one of my favorite songs I heard was one by Rascal Flatts called “Country Song Backwards." While people used to claim that if you played certain albums by various artist backwards you would hear subliminal messages ie. The Beatles and Ozzy Osbourne (link) when you play a country song backwards you actually get things back, like your old truck, your dog and other items lost during your life.
Anyway, back to my story. Rascal Flatts came to Cincinnati and Columbus this summer, and somehow I ended up taking Ellis to both shows. As a fan club member, Ellis is eligible for certain “perks” that come with the privilege, one of which is actually getting to meet the group, Gary, Jay and her favorite Joe Don.
Only 30 people per show get this honor, and it is a race on the computer to see who clicks the fastest when they announce the sign up online. Needless to say, Ellis did not get a “meet and greet” for the local shows. Being the encouraging Dad that I am, I gave her the idea of just keep trying each time they announced a sign up, regardless of where it was, I guess expecting that it was so far fetched, it would never happen.
SO you guess what happened from there…. Yep, the next time she tried she actually got her meet and greet .. IN HARTFORD CT.
She was so excited she floated around the house for days, and I was feverishly trying to find a cheap way to get to Hartford.
You can read her blog post to get all of the details about the “moment” she met the guys. She designed her own custom wrapper and gave them a gift of her own custom wrapped Hershey’s bars, which you can also see on her blog post, from a photo I took at the Columbus, Ohio concert. They loved them, my daughter was again floating on thin air, and we then enjoyed a great show in the “pit” right by the stage.
Jason Aldean opened up and was great as well. When all the smoke cleared, and it was time to go home, we both had some great memories of the evening, and her old Dad had some legs that were ready to collapse after standing for 9 hours straight, while his daughter floated all night long.