Nashville, Pt. 1

Jen and I are in Nashville right now. Jen's been on a big country kick lately. She's been to Nashville once before and she's been dying to come back.

Tonight was the finale of Nashville Star. We got tickets for it before the season started. The show has been taping at the Acuff Theater on the Grand Ole Opry complex. This theater is right next to the main Opry theater.

It's very weird attending the show live. Before the live show began at 9:00 Central, they taped the performances by Jewel and by Randy Owen of Alabama with the show's contestants. They then interspersed those performances into the show.

The Randy Owen segment opened the program, and it was funny to watch him sitting at the judge's table in the audience watching his own performance on the big screen above the stage. The band was on stage watching the segment as well.

It was impossible to hear Jewel and Cowboy Troy do the host segments over the crowd noise. We could only hear what was going on when it was quiet. All the performances sounded great, though.

Because of the number of commercials, the show felt very herky-jerky. Plus, we had two segments where we were just sitting there watching the big screen because they had pre-taped the performances. We were told when to stand up (usually coming out of commercial breaks) and when to really let loose with the applause.

After Angela Hacker was named the winner, she performed "Sweet Home Alabama." Once the song was over, the stage manager thanked us for coming, and people cleared out. The cast and crew milled about on stage, congratulating Angela and talking with each other. Quite a few people in the audience hung around, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just friends and family of the contestants.

Here are some pictures from the show and from our dinner at the Catfish House in Springfield, TN. We'll probably add to it as the trip goes along. We just have my camera phone, so they won't be the most brilliant shots, though.