4/10/2012
The grown-up portion of our trip involved a concert at the Grand Ole Opry – country music’s home theater and the world’s oldest radio show. I’d been to the Grand Ole Opry years before on a road trip with my dad and brother, but Laura had never been. Neither of us are country fans, but we can appreciate good musicianship no matter the genre. We were looking forward to a night out.
We booked a package at the Hyatt Place that came with two tickets to the show and a shuttle service. (I was especially excited about the shuttle since Opry parking is the outrageous price of $18!) Two guys in the shuttle asked us where we were from, where we were going and if we were country fans. “No,” we said. “People don’t like country in Ohio,” the one guy said. “Only NASCAR,” said the other.
Seating at the Opry is a little unique. Everyone has a specific seat number, but the rows don’t have individual seats – they’re more like long pews. This led to a little bit of an embarrassing moment. A group of men who may have had a few extra pieces of sweet potato pie shared our row. By shared, I mean took it up completely. They seemed ok with this. A kind usher took pity on us and upgraded our seats in the process, so all’s well that ends well.
The concert was very enjoyable. There were about 8 or 9 acts, each one performing in different styles. The opening act was a quartet of goofy old men who sang cowboy songs and made corny comments like, “May the horse be with you.” A couple of middle-aged country crooners sang their hits from the 70s and 80s, while newish pop acts like an American Idol runner-up impressed the younger crowd. Our favorite group was a bluegrass band. The lead guy was an old man who looked like Andrew Jackson (more on that phenomenon later), but the rest of the guys were thirty-somethings in business suits who looked like they stepped out of a Dilbert cartoon. They didn’t look it, but they could play!
As I’ve already said, country music is not our thing, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It’s hard not to be caught up in the patriotic fervor that this music seems to do to people. There was definitely a reverence for the past and a particular American musical tradition. One of the performers was 91-year old “Little” Jimmie Dickens, who gave the best performance of the night. (Laura’s favorite.) He was followed by a group of young people who seemed a little nervous to be playing on that famous stage. I think we’d be hard pressed to find that much diversity and mutual respect in one place. You don’t have to be a country fan to see that.
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