~GARTH CONCERT REVIEW~


DATE: THURSDAY, MAY 21,1998 8:00 P.M.
PLACE: FREEDOM HALL, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

~OUR ADVENTURE BEFORE THE CONCERT~
(GETTING THE TICKETS)

The big day was on May 21, but as odd as it may sound, it all started
on April 18th whenever I found out I couldn't get tickets to the
Garth concert in Lexington. I knew that he was going to be in my
area,(I live in Kentucky) but it took me by surprise one day when
I called the local ticket selling place and they said that the
tickets sales had already went on at 10 that morning. It was about
2 P.M. at the time. Well I started freaking out, and after racing
to the store. I found that they only had the rafter seats left for
the show. So I decided to take my chances and try to go to the next
concert in Ky. which was Louisville.


That same store said that the next Saturday, April, 25th would be
the day the tickets would go on sale there, at 10 a.m., and WoW!
Lucky us, we were only 3 people away from the desk. The people in
front of us left and we asked them about the tickets for Garth.
They said they weren't selling tickets to the concert, that the
concert was too far away and that we'd have to order them over the
phone from ticketmaster. We were almost in tears. We had to go home
and wait for 10 to arrive. At five minutes til ten, my mom using
one phone line, and me using the other line, we had began trying
to get through. It took about 1 hour til we got through only to hear
the first show was sold out, and they weren't selling tickets to a
second show yet. It took another couple hours until we got through
being lucky enough to get 6 tickets for the second show, on May 21,
the day before my birthday!


Those next 26 days were the longest days I had ever had to go through!!
Tab, who was originally going with us found that she couldn't so Amber's
mom decided to go,(She had never saw Garth in concert, unlike the rest
of us.) So it ended up being, Amber, her mom, my mom, Rachel,Dixie,and
I going.


The Trip To Louisville


On the day of the concert, we planned to leave at 3:00 so that we'd have
plenty of time to get there, get our hotel room, and get to the concert
in time. But things didn't exactly work as planned. I left school early
along with Tab, and Rachel, and got home and found Dixie, Amber and her
mom Cheri waiting there for us. It was at about 15 til 3 when my mom
called from work and said she hadn't gotten her pay check yet, and we
couldn't leave without money. She finally got it around 3:15 and we all
left. We got 5 miles down the road when the van we were driving broke
down on us. It was then that we realized, we needed a different vehicle,
that would carry 6 people. We borrowed my aunts blazer which seated 4
people comfortably, and we had luggage, so you could imagine how fun the
2 hour drive was! When we finally got there, at around 7, we found our
hotel easily,(surprize,surprize) checked in there, and then since we were
only across the street from Freedom Hall, we walked to the concert fully
loaded with our camera's and proudly wearing our Garth shirts.
Before we went in we, of course, had to buy some new awesome "Sevens"
shirts, then we were on our way to our seats. When we finally made our
way to our seats we found out that they weren't as bad as we thought they
were going to be. We were about halfway to the back of the place on the
right side balcony. We had row "P" so we were kind of high up there, but
they were still pretty good. We got ourselves something to drink and went
back to our seats just in time for the lights to go out. Then for the next
30-45 minutes Trisha took the stage. I don't remember every song she sang
but just to name a few, "How Do I Live", "She's In Love With The Boy",
and "Wrong Side of Memphis." Rachel was kind of sad because Trisha didn't
sing Rachels favorite song, "Walkaway Joe." But she did a good job anyway.
After Trisha was finished we had a 15 minute break before Garth Time!
The lights finally went down and up came the piano with Garth right in the
middle of it!! Of course he opened up singing "The Old Stuff" Of course
it was a little hard to hear it between me and Ambers screaming! The other
songs that he sang were as follows.


(2)"Two Of A Kind Working On A Full House"
(3)"Standing Outside The Fire"
(4)"Beaches Of Cheyanne"
(5)"Two Pina Colada's"
(6)"Papa Loved Momma"
(7)"The Thunder Rolls"
(8)"We Shall Be Free"
(9)"Unanswered Prayers"
(10)"That Summer"
(11)"Shameless"
(12)"Callin Baton Rouge"
(13)"Longneck Bottle"
(14)"Walk Away Joe"(with Trisha)
(15)"The Fever"
(16)"Friends In Low Places"
(17)"The Dance"


After "The Dance" he left the stage, but I knew that he'd be back! Let me
tell ya, the crowd didn't quit until he did come back! Then we cheered
louder than ever! Garth came back singing "Ain't Going Down, Til The Sun
Comes Up" Followed by:


(2)"On The Road Again"
(3)"A Friend To Me"
(4)"Wild World"
(5)"Mrs. Robinson"
(6)"American Pie"


He also sang two other songs by different artists but I can't remember which
ones they were.:( Some of the best parts of the concert in my opinion, was
when he sang my favorite new song, "Two Pina Colada's", his oh-so-famous
SWIVEL during "Shameless", and Jimmy's solo during "The Fever" Also Rachel
was even happier to hear "Walkaway Joe" with Garth singing along.:) He sang
"A Friend To Me" by request and made it known to everyone that the girl
requested it, he even asked her name and then said this ones for you! I bet
she felt special! Dixie also felt pretty special when he sang, "Mrs. Robinson"
since thats Dixie's last name! Really, The only bad thing I could say about
the concert is that he didn't sing mine and Rachels favorite song "The River"
Well actually there was one more bad thing, and that would be that it didn't
last long enough. Three hours just wasn't enough for me!
After the concert, we started our walk "home". Because of a motorcycle
accident damaging Cheri's leg, a few years ago, she wasn't able to walk very
far after standing and cheering from 8:00 til 12:00!( Obviously, she loved the
concert) So we decided to take a pit stop when were halfway out of the parking
lot. While we were sitting at a bench next to the road a huge bus pulled out
honking it's horn. We thought that maybe it could be Garth, but didn't really
think he could have gotten out of there that fast, so we didn't think much of
it, although I did take a picture.:) After that we finished our journey back
to the hotel. From all the excitement, It was hard to go to sleep, and we were
starving, so we thought we'd order a pizza. There were no pizza places open so
we ate our dinner out of a vending machine in the hotel. Then finally we went
to sleep.


We woke up the next morning, and were gonna go to a nearby amusement park
thinking our "Garth time" was over. But while we were taking a shuttle bus
from our hotel to the park, we found that our adventure had just started!!!
As the guy driving the bus, went through the parking lot of our hotel, we
saw the same bus that drove by us the night before after the concert, only
there were three of them this time! Plus two red buses. We asked the driver
who's buses they were and he said that the blue ones were Garth's and the
red ones,Trisha's. We couldn't believe it, there was a chance Garth could be
at our hotel.


Well I bet you could guess what we did after we came back from the park. Of
course, we went down to the buses in hopes to catch a glimpse of Garth, before
he left for that nights concert. We also had written him a note to leave on
the bus in case there was no one in it. We went for the first door we could
find that went outside,(the hotel was huge) and when we went outside there
right next to the door was Garth's bus and it was just about to leave! We
didn't see Garth but did see one of his "crew members" and asked him to give
the note to Garth. He said sure, jumped on the bus and pulled out. Can you
guess our next idea? Of course we waited until that nights concert was over,
then when we saw the cars pull out of the parking lot, we raced down to the
lobby and went out that same door, and stood for about 30 min. in the pouring
rain waiting on the bus to come back. While we were waiting we went up to
Trisha's bus, which was already at the hotel to see if the driver could tell
us if Garth was really staying at our hotel. To our surprize, Trisha's lead
guitarist, Johnny Garcia, opened the door. Well we ended up getting his
autograph and a picture of him, then we went back to the door of the hotel
and waited on Garth's bus. When it finally arrived, we thought for sure he
was going to come in through our doors, because of the security guard at the
door, but unfortunatly, he went in through a different door.
Well we didn't get to meet Garth that weekend, but we had a great time at the
concert and had just as much fun "stalking" him at the hotel. LOL! It might
have been my third time at a Garth concert, but I know it will be the most
memorable one!
~Thanks for the great weekend Garth~
(C)copyright ~SARAH FLOYD~


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