So Willie Nelson was, as expected, great. The show was sold out and standing room only. If you've never been to the NorVa you're missing out. It is quickly becoming my all-time favorite venue. Although, it still has a ways to go before beating out the 40 Watt in Athens, GA. Way too many great memories in that place for it to fall by the wayside.
Anyway, one cool thing about the NorVa is that it backs up to a restaurant/bar (Kelly's Backstage Tavern). Not so amazing at face value. But if you eat dinner at Kelly's, you can get in early to the NorVa through a back hallway. I've done this a few times and it really doesn't make that much of a difference with where you end up watching the show unless there are seats. If you're going to the pit, like I am apt to do, it makes no difference. However, with Mom and Dad in tow, we wanted to get closer to the stage for Mr. Nelson.
So, we called a few days prior to the show to set up a reservation. I'd never done this before, but we figured it may be a good idea due to the popularity of the artist. Well, apparently we weren't the only folks thinking this. There were no more spots left. This was a bit discouraging but we pressed on.
We arrived an hour and a half prior to the doors opening for general admission and went to Kelly's to see what we could work out. The hostess said if we spent $10 a piece at the bar, they would sign our receipt and that would work. So, we headed to the bar... along with everyone else. After waiting for about 15 minutes to get some attention from the overworked bartender, we told her what boat we were in. We began to order 4 shots of Johnny Walker Black Label and a Cosmo for Mom and Aubry but the bartender said if we just order the shots, that would be close enough. Dad and I took our shots and we went outside to get into the early-entry line.
We ended up standing at the rail of the balcony directly in front of the stage. We were all very happy with out 'seats'. The show was great... he probably played 2 dozen songs altogether. He hit all the high notes and even covered a few including Joplin's 'Me and My Bobby McGee'. Good times.
Now onto other news. Here's my new idea... I'm going to post stills from webcams that I find around the web, whenever I have time. I will probably fall back on the Zoo, where I work. But it should add some interest to my site. We'll see... So here's day one. These are our lion cubs, that were born in August, with their mom sitting in the morning sun.
Take care...
