Nashville - Music City (Pt 1)

Day 13 we completed the last leg of our mid-west roadie from Memphis to Nashville. Its only a 3 hour drive between the two on the Interstate so a fairly easy drive on dead straight roads. We grabbed breakfast at Sonic Drivein where you pull your car up into a drivein, order from a panel (much like the drive thru ones) and they bring your food out to you on rollerskates! This is  franchise we have seen everywhere we have been.
When heading to Music City what do you do first?? See a ball game of course! We were itching to get to Broadway in downtown Nashville but this was really going to be our only opportunity to see a real American Baseball game. The teams playing were minor league (Nashville Sounds vs Rock Express) but we really wanted to go for the atmosphere. Of course they start with the national anthem and the hold stadium comes to a halt. They wont even let you through the gates while it is happening, everyone just stops and puts their hand on their heart. It was a half decent crowd considering it was a Monday night and our seats were in the front row right next to the benches so we felt like we were on the field! You have to keep your eye on the game to avoid being hit in the face by a speeding baseball!! A little kid got hit in the face cause his dad wasn't watching 😕 It can be a pretty slow game at times but they keep it exciting by adding all sorts of competitions between innings and they have the dance cams going. Everyone sang 'Let's All Go to the Ball Game' which is apparently the standard thing at every game.
The big screen was in a shape of a guitar of course and as each batter was up they played a little theme music and had the stats and little video of them up on the screen (quite similar to wrestling intros on tv).
There was the classic hotdogs and chips being sold everywhere, and the cheerleaders do a hotdog throw where they chuck free ones out into the crowd.
The kids in the crowd all have baseball gloves ready to catch rouge balls as they come flying, and after every innings one of the players throws a ball into the crowd for the kids to catch and take home as a souvenir, they must go through around 20+ balls a game.
The game got pretty exciting in the last innings as the home team were down 1-5 and they made a comeback to win 6-5!
First Tennessee Park is only a few blocks out of town so we made our way straight to Broadway when the game was finished.
Well Broadway is just a giant version of Beale Street! It was awesome, and the fact it was a Monday night seemed to have no bearing on the crowds whatsoever! Our first stop was Tootsies Orchid Lounge which is 3 stories and had a different band on each level. This is the bar where many big artists were discovered in years gone by. As you walk down the street there is bar after bar, who all have multiple levels and rooftop bars with bands on every floor playing country, honky tonk and bluegrass. After enjoying a few packed bars we found a quiet bar in a sidestreet to have a drink as the main street was just a little overwhelming!
Day 14 was Grand Ole Opry day. We spent a little time in the city duty the day but it was 33 degrees, humid and we were tired from a late night on Broadway the night prior. We sussed out the location of the burlesque and line dancing bars to come back to at night later in the week. We are staying around the corner from Opryland so it was an easy trip to the Grand Ole Opry. We attended the weekly Tuesday night radio show which gets broadcast live across the world and has been a tradition since 1925!
The show was great, lots of variety as each artist only does 3 songs. Our line up included the Charlie Daniels Band, Holly Williams, Jason Aldean, Michael Ray, Trent Harmon and Riders in the Sky. When those red curtains go up and you see the Opry backdrop for the first time it is quite impressive!
The actual venue has  some lovely bits of historical tributes to the Ryman where the show first started, it only moved to it's own purpose built venue in the 70s. Some people were upset about the move so they cut a circle of wood out of the Ryman stage from behind the curtain on stage right where the artists would all stand when waiting to go on. This has been inserted into the centre of the stage at the Opry where the performers stand to perform and where lots of great artists before them have stood. We got to stand on this as part of our backstage tour 😍
They also have pews from the original Ryman pulpit at the back on each side of the stage where friends and families of the artists can sit and watch them perform. The auditorium has bench seats to emulate the pews from the Ryman, however they are padded so they are a little more comfortable.
We checked out the dressing rooms which are all themed, and they are beautiful! They try and match the artists to the dressing room they think they will most enjoy, and they have a special dressing room for people making their debut performance. We got to peek into the one that is generally used for Nashville dressing room scenes as well...its one of the actual dressing rooms. The whole Opry is an interesting concept as it is not your traditional venue and the artists that are members are selected by a board and invited to be a member, so it is very prestigious to be a member. They even have a little post office where fan mail for the artists gets delivered and when they come to perform they pick it up out of their mailbox.
We ate not big country music fans, but there was something quite special about this venue and all of the traditions and history surrounding it.

Photos: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AsbHvsl8mGaZgd886vHnLVlc3wlwNA