My friend Jennifer and I arrived for the show almost 2 hours early, after waiting in line for half an hour, they let us loose. We originally were seated up in the grandstands, but when we saw empty bales of hay in the VIP area, we made a mad dash through the gate and soon we were plunked down in front of the stage.

The opening act was a very funny comedian by the name of Herb Dixon, my only complaint was that his show ran too long. Finally after what seemed like hours, the Rankins ran on stage and whipped the audience into a frenzy with "Roving Gypsy Boy" Armed with cameras, my friend Ashley and I were the first up to the fence to snap photos. We got smiles out of Cookie and Heather. We like to credit ourselves with starting the whole, "cling to the fence and look like prisoners" deal. This giant fence prompted Cookie to comment on the fact that this was like singing to prisoners.

The Rankins sang for what I guess was about an hour and a half, returning on stage for a tremendous encore. You haven't heard anything until you've heard the Mull River Shuffle combined with Honky Tonk Woman and Hey Good Lookin'.

The real treat came after the show when after being told by one stage hand, one security guard and one CD selling dude, there was no way the Rankins were signing that evening, I got to meet Heather Rankin. Just as Jenn and I were leaving, we past their bus and Cookie was getting out into a small crowd of people. Dashing in through an opening in the fence, past 3 security guards, we were soon amongst that crowd. We soon found out that this oportunity to meet the Rankins was for contest winners.

The reason I only met Heather was because as soon as Cookie and Heather moved near to me, I started practically hyper ventilating and just froze up. Totally unable to say anything I snapped a few pictures and just stood there in awe. I've been a huge fan of this group since 1994 and this just left me speechless. By the time I had recovered myself, Cookie had gone back into the bus, Jimmy was having some time to do personal things, John Morris was no where in sight and Heather looked ready to follow Cookie. I ran over to Heather, presented her with my Uprooted case, (the cd was not with it as I couldn't find it! Thankfully while Heather was holding it she never questioned why it was so light). Heather graciously signed it for me and allowed me to have my picture taken with her, which I hope to God will turn out!!