I wouldn’t say that it was on my bucket list but I can remember wanting to go to a concert on New Year’s Eve in Nashville. I remember flying into Nashville from a business trip and a huge billboard was promoting a New Year’s concert. I don’t remember who the artist was but I do remember thinking that would be a huge way to spend New Year’s Eve. This year I found out that Jimmy Buffet was going to be in Nashville on New Year’s Eve with Huey Lewis and the News. I might have thought about it a minute or two but then made up my mind to go. I bought tickets the day they went on sale and got good seats. I was spending some money but I thought it would be worth it, when it was all said and done.
We don’t live that far to Nashville but we decided to go down early and to make sure to get a hotel room for the night.
I wouldn’t say that we are Jimmy Buffet fans. But I wouldn’t say we aren’t. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most people our age are Buffet fans. I mean, he’s an icon, right? Of course he would laugh at that I’m sure. I was reminded by a friend of mine that we had seen him when we were in high school. I guess I remember that, but then again, not. I would say that we are not parrot heads but I think that would be fun to do, for a week or something.
I’m a die-hard traditional country fan. Jimmy likes country but he likes R&B too. In fact I think his favorite artist is Whitney Houston. But Jimmy Buffet transcends genres. Even those who wouldn’t consider themselves fans know all the words to at least a lot of his songs. You can’t help but sing along.
I think it’s safe to say that we’re not concert-goers. I know we’ve been to concerts together but they’ve been small and not necessarily an event. Actually the concerts we’ve been to have been very last minute and someone has usually given us the tickets. So, we don’t know things like you’d better get there an hour before the concert starts because they put you through metal detectors and search your bags. And thousands of your closest friends have the same idea as you and plan to get there 30 minutes before the act goes on. And most people are either drunk or high and don’t seem to have manors. So, we decided we didn’t need to catch the shuttle bus at 7 PM because the concert doesn’t start until 9 PM. That was a mistake.
We got in the tailend of our thousands of close friends. It was 2 degrees outside which wasn’t an issue because we were a huge mob, right? That was fine until it was totally obvious that we were the last ones coming in and the downtown wind started whipping around me. It was cold. All the drunks around me had to pee so guess what? I had to pee. Once we got into the doors I saw that there weren’t people down at the other end so I quickly moved down there. We went through security with no problems but when we went through the gate I had handed Jimmy the parking ticket instead of a ticket to the concert so he hollered at me and I was on my way to the bathroom. I almost didn’t make the bathroom. Then we had to find our seats and I’ll tell you that they were good, but not. Thy were 4 rows up on the side. They were on the end, except that they were really at the end of a dead end. And someone was in them. They offered to go to their seats but it didn’t really matter since we couldn’t go in and out that way.
The best thing about going to a Jimmy Buffet concert is that everyone is a fan. Everyone. And there are quite a few that know all the words to all the songs. Don’t get me wrong, I know quite a few of his songs but there were those who knew every song. I felt inadequate amongst all those uber fans. But it didn’t matter because they were part of the show.
We were late to see Huey Lewis and the News. We got to hear him sing 2 songs. I was disappointed but thoroughly entertained with those two songs including The Power of Love. We were settling in well watching the beach balls flying along the arena when the lights went out and Jimmy started. The crowd went wild! And let me tell you that he didn’t disappoint.
I’m not here to review the concert, I’m not qualified for that. But I will tell you that I enjoyed it much more than I expected and I had high expectations. Jimmy entertained and kept us informed of how much time was left in 2017. It was nothing but fun!
There had been rumors going into the concert that Alan Jackson was there and was going to sing Five O’Clock Somewhere with Jimmy. Someone else said that Zac Brown was there. Jimmy even said that there were going to be a few surprises throughout the night. As it was, they didn’t show but Huey Lewis did come out and play the harmonica on one of the songs.
There were about 3 minutes left in the year when Jimmy, and the crowd, started singing Margaritaville. He kept changing the words indicating it was close to the new year. And then there was the last 10 second countdown. And then the balloons fell and I’ll tell you that was the most fun. At the end of the song everyone had to kiss in the new year and the band sang Auld Lang Syne. And then we started to play with the balloons.
I kept thinking, why am I so excited about batting a balloon into the crowd. I don’t know why but I had a ball. It was such fun. And Jimmy just kept singing. I know he didn’t sing every song he ever recorded but he sang so many. My biggest thrill was when my Jimmy thanked me for making him come. It made my heart smile.
We hung around after the concert in the lobby because it was so cold outside and we had about 30 minutes before the shuttle was going to be back. When we headed out we had to wait almost an hour in single digit temperatures waiting on the right bus. We were hunkered down against the building and this huge bus came by. I made up my mind to get on that bus, I didn’t know where it was going. As luck would have it though that bus was going to take us back to our hotel.
Jimmy and I never go to bed late. Late for us is 10 or 11. It was 2:30 by the time we got back to the hotel. We got up at 6:30 the next morning. I looked at Jimmy and told him I was taking a nap. I slept until 10.
On the way home we both agreed that we were so glad that we did this, but that we never have to do it again. It was just too cold.
