I work in country music and had never been to Nashville, the crazy town that is the HOME of country music. It’s Music City! It’s where everyone who is anyone in country music calls home! I was invited on a bachelorette party trip for a sorority sister, and I really couldn’t turn it down!
Friday: Spent 6 hours in a car. Yuck. The best part was that only an hour of it was alone! The Bride lives in Springfield, so I met up with her and one of her work friends and we traveled south together. Other friends of hers live in St. Louis, and by the time we reached Southern IL, we were really hungry, so we met up with the St. Louis friends and stopped for lunch. Then we got back on the road and talked (and jammed to music) all the way down to Nashville.
I have such a thing for downtown views, so driving by the Nashville Skyline was breathtaking! I was a TOTAL tourist, taking TONS of pictures, and a total millennial by using Snapchat to denote the location with some sweet filters.
One of the first things I noticed, Ty, Kelly, and Chuck are always talking about how Cranes are just an expected part of the Nashville skyline, and yup, right there in my skyline picture you see a ginormous crane!
We get to the hotel and the Maid of Honor, Breana’s sister, had decked out our hotel suite with all kinds of black and gold decor, gifts for all of us (including hangover baskets… girl KNEW what she was doing), and the super cute “Something Bad is about to Happen” tank tops we all got laid out. Let’s not even mention the DOZENS of cupcakes and cake balls laid out. Let’s just say my diet did NOT survive the entire trip, but I seriously tried for the first day!
We all changed and there were title stickers given out… I was dubbed selfie queen, so I took that to heart.
We headed to dinner, because you NEED to eat before the real drinking begins, and then we headed downtown.
We were looking for parking and I see call letters, and as the radio nerd I am, I googled them to find out that this was actually Nashville’s Nash FM!! So cool!
There was a bar on Broadway called “Crazy Town” and, naturally, Jason Aldean’s “Crazy Town” starts playing in my head…. and then it clicks. As I’m looking up at all the neon signs and singing “It’s a crazy town full of neon dreams…” NASHVILLE. Nashville is the crazy town. Mind. Blown. Which is kind of dumb, as he actually mentions Nashville in the song, but I was a few jello shots deep by the time we got to Broadway, so this was a mind-blowing realization at that moment.
Things I noticed:
- The first bar we went to had karaoke… and guys, karaoke in Music City is not karaoke in central Illinois… even the worst ones were great!
- Not all states ban smoking in bars. I walked out of that first bar and reeked of cigarette smoke. I don’t judge you, if you smoke, that’s totally your call, but I had forgotten how much I hated smelling like a giant cigarette when having gone to a restaurant!
Of course, as “Selfie Queen” I had to take selfies of us out on the dance floor!
That’s Breana, the bride, next to me!
I lost count of the number of bars we hopped along to, but there was amazing live shows at each one. I secretly hoped we’d accidentally stumble along one of our awesome Peoria #NashNext Artists, but we did not. The Maid of Honor had a bunch of Dare cards, so we tried our hand at those. I got “Get the bride to take a picture of a man in uniform.” Her dad, who was with us, is a cop, so he walked on over to one of the men on duty and asked if they would take a picture with his daughter, and he was happy to do so, so with help, challenge completed! The guy in our group (you see HALF his face in the picture above) got one that said “get the bartender to give you a kiss on the cheek.” Which he wasn’t fond of, and he thought it’d be creepy to ask the female bartenders so he went around to the guy (brought me with him so he didn’t look weird) and asked HIM if he’d do it based on the dare card. He said they weren’t allowed to do things like that, so I stepped up. “What if it was me, does that make it better?” Nope, still couldn’t do it. Challenge failed. He got another card that said “get the DJ to play ‘Single Ladies'” but since this is Nashville and there are no DJs, just bands, he tried to get the BAND to play “Single Ladies.” Again, denied, because they didn’t know the music for it. Poor Tim… had a rough dare night!
We made it back to the hotel by 3am, only after stopping at Taco Bell near our hotel because, duh! We climbed in bed and all proceeded to pass out.
Saturday:
We woke up the next morning to a disaster zone! We made a ginormous mess of the suite we had been given. Clothes everywhere, empty jello shot containers… and of course, make up and hair products all over. After a quick pull together of my stuff, I realized I had only brought my black boots, and my cowboy boots, and I had nothing else to walk down to breakfast in with my PJs, so I pulled on those cowboy boots and rocked them breakfast style!
We showered and got ready and then toured the town!
We went back to Broadway, and even in the daylight it was packed with people and live music EVERYWHERE! I convinced everyone to make their way to the Ryman and I got to see the Mother Church itself!
(this one has multiple pictures, hover over the right or left hand side and you’ll see arrows pop up)
Now I knew the Ryman was a historical building, but I didn’t know the story behind it. So in a nutshell, a guy named Thomas Ryman liked the whole partying thing, and heard about a preacher who turning all his party people holy… well now that’s bad for business, so he went to talk to this guy and in ONE sermon, Ryman found God and built the theatre (then called the Union Gospel Tabernacle) for church purposes, but had a lot of great singers come perform, too! The acoustics were awesome so artists LOVED performing there. When Thomas Ryman passed away, the building was renamed after him. Eventually, the Grand Ole Opry, a radio show wanted to take residency there, and drew amazing artists and sold out shows. When the Opry moved to its own building, it looked like the end for the Ryman, and it would be torn down, but the city of Nashville came together and artists and patrons alike helped save it. It was remodeled and still holds shows to this day; even the Opry comes back to it!
With so much history, I HAD to take the on stage picture… yes, I had to pay for it, but it was well worth it.
So then it was time to go out again for round two. The party-planning MOH had booked us a private area at Honky Tonk central where we could see the band on stage, but not have to battle the crowds, get appetizers and an open bar, so of course, there wasn’t a moment where anyone was drink-less! I posed with my Miranda-and-Carrie-inspired “Something Bad is About to Happen” tank… not realizing the ominous message probably tempted fate.
Our time was up at Honky Tonk at 10, so we headed to Coyote Ugly, which I was insanely excited about, because I had LOVED the movie as a pre-teen. Got up and had a little fun dancing on the bar (basically like dancing on a really thin stage, and it’s part of the charm.
The Coyotes (the bartenders) LOVED us, and kept pulling us up several times to dance! Now non-inebriated Kristin is usually a little too reserved to do this, but Kristin 11 beverages in wanted to just have fun! *Disclaimer: I rarely drink… seriously, I think the last time I had alcohol before this was… uh… A margarita in February… then A drink in December on Christmas Eve? Yeah… so my tolerance level is pretty non-existent.* As Brad Paisley says, Alcohol “help[s] white people dance.”
Then a series of things happened around the same time. I had just introduced my new boots to “Copperhead Road” and was coming back to the group when I hear our friend say “DON’T SLAP ME” and as I turn to find out what the commotion was, I was suddenly soaking wet with my eyes positively BURNING! I had just had a drink thrown at me, and I had no idea why, but my eyes wouldn’t open for a minute, and wouldn’t stop watering for a few more after that. Apparently our friend had fallen asleep at the bar, and another one who was dancing on the bar had lightly slapped him awake… and in that knee-jerk reaction, I ended up with a vodka tonic (maybe? I’m not really sure what it was) thrown on ME! Things settled down and I started getting back into dancing again (although that will sober you up quickly) when I realized that friend had been watching my stuff (he felt so bad he left the bar while the bride was cleaning my running makeup and helping get the alcohol out of my eye), and now it wasn’t on the bar. I turn around to see that it’s with the bride’s parents, but I checked anyway to make sure everything was there… aaaand… my wristlet was gone! It had about $35 in cash, my ID and my Debit card in it. We searched the bar, and the bartenders were so great in contacting their management to review the tapes and try to help me find my wristlet. It was never found, but they were SO nice, it made a bad situation better.
SO we went home. I checked my bank account in the Uber and nothing had been charged yet, but when I awoke the next morning, there were two $1 charges for “Shell Oil.” Boo. So I cancelled the card and filed a report with the Nashville Police Department, who were incredibly helpful. I filed the report over the phone (thank goodness I didn’t have to hold anyone up while waiting for an officer) and then we were on our long journey home.
Sunday:
We packed up the car, all very groggy, and headed back for Illinois. I felt so bad, I wanted to stay awake to keep Breana occupied but I completely fell asleep for a little bit. I don’t get hungover the way most people do, I just get tired with a headache (although I was smart and took IB Profen in the middle of the night when I woke up, so no headache for me). I kept saying “I need to run when I get home, even if it’s a quick 2 miles” but by the time I did get home I felt like this:
At 7pm I climbed into bed, not wanting to do anything but sleep, and didn’t move a muscle until I woke up at 3:30 this morning to run Ty, Kelly, and Chuck… and I was still nodding off in my chair.
Don't nod off in a swivel chair with your feet propped up. You will fall off. PSA.
— 🎙Kristin (@RadioKristin) April 10, 2017
UPDATE** The Nashville Police Department just called me to check up and see if I had recieved any more information on the charges from my bank, and wondered if I’d want to travel to Nashville just to persecute. I joked with him and said “Hey, it’d be another excuse to visit Nashville…” And turns out, the officer that called me had not only HEARD of Peoria, Illinois, but went to Bradley! Small world! But seriously, the fact they followed up and seem really invested in doing what they can is amazing! I had my car broken into and my purse stolen a few years back and all the PD did then (it was in Bloomington) was take a report and say “You shouldn’t leave your purse in the car.” Uh, thanks. You just heard me say I thought I had it. but that advice will help me for the rest of my life, sir. Never heard back. Never expected to. SO much happens in Nashville, I really expected this would be the bottom of their list, too, but this was awesome that they do seem to care!
