Worth an Update

Ok, I know I'm a slacker. I think we've already established that one. But.... I have some pretty cool news that I had to share with everyone. So I like country music, and my family HATES it. I'm pretty much the black sheep of the family when it comes to that. Well, Martina McBride happens to be my favorite artist of all time, and I had the opportunity to go to her concert in SLC last night. We arrived a little early so the gates hadn't opened up yet. It was scorching hot outside, and I was really getting irritated by all the heat. There were about three or four radio stations lined up blasting music and promoting the concert. It was getting to be pretty annoying when one of the stations stopped playing music and started giving out free t-shirts and the usual radio junk. Well, all of a sudden I hear the DJ tell everyone to take out their cell phones. He said the seventh caller would win a pair of backstage passes to see Martina. So of course I'm going to get my phone out in the vain hope that I'll win a chance to meet Martina. I tried calling over and over but the line was busy every time. Finally it rang. And rang..... and rang. I thought I had dialed the wrong number since no one had picked up. Then the DJ answered the phone, and I was lucky number 7! How cool is that? I think it's pretty doggone awesome. Well, it turned out that they only gave me one backstage pass, which kind of stinks because 1. they had told me it would be a set, and 2. Who goes to a concert by themselves? Oh well, I can't really complain. A backstage pass is a backstage pass.

So I get back in line after scoring my sweet win, and I see a guy with a video camera. Martina sings this song called "For These Times." It's a song about how the world is such a crazy place right now, but you can always find the good if you look hard enough. Well, she does this pretty cool thing where they have the audience write things on a white board that they wish for themselves or just the world in general while they're waiting in line for the gates to open. They film the people writing their wishes down, and then show it on these huge screens in the background while Martina is singing the song. The guy filming pulls me aside and asks me if I want to write something on the board. Of course I said "Heck yes!" I wrote that my wish was to meet Martina, and then the guy did a close up of me holding my backstage pass with a big grin on my face. So I got to be on the big screen at the USANA amphitheater while Martina McBride sang. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Meeting Martina was a whirlwind. They kind of just cart you through really fast so you don't get a lot of time to say much. It was pretty much "How are you," "Thanks for coming" sort of thing, and then you get a picture with her and an autograph. It was really neat getting to meet her even if it was reallllly fast.

The concert itself was completely awesome. That woman has some lungs, and she knows how to use them. We had pretty good seats too. All in all, I would say that that is probably as good as it could get for my first Martina concert. It was so cool that I got to meet her and be in the video. I would have been perfectly happy with just the concert, but the other stuff made it completely awesome!