Tonight, I remembered how much I love country music! As a birthday surprise for Amber, Jill, Lindsay, Colin and I took her to see Brad Paisley in concert at Nissan Pavilion. Unfortunately, the weather sucked, but the concert was a total kick in the pants!
As soon as Colin, Chappy and Lindsay picked us up, it started to rain and it continued to rain during the entire 1-hour drive to the venue. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, but it was an outdoor venue and our “seats” were the open lawn. Not good. 
Our pre-show entertainment was watching a crowd of people create a mudslide down the entire grass hill. These morons would start at the top, get a running start, and then fly face-first down a hill of mud. It was hilarious for the spectators, but you’ve got to figure that the full body mud mask got uncomfortable throughout the evening and made the car ride home a bit of a predicament!
While we were being entertained by the mud slide, Colin went and rented five lawn chairs, so we were able to hunker down under our umbrellas and eat our picnic dinner – albeit very carefully as we were trying to handle Ziploc bags, serving utensils and umbrellas! The good news is that the rain eventually subsided and we were able to enjoy a really nice cool evening. The bad news is that we were in a crowd of 20-something over-sexed young couples who thought that just because it was nightfall, no one could see their hands down each other’s pants. Honestly, I didn’t know whether to be disgusted or jealous!
The concert itself was terrific. Darrius Rucker, once of Hootie & the Blowfish fame and now a solo country artist, was the opening act and he was great. Brad Paisley came out for about 90 minutes and also put on a really fun show. He performed all over the stage and walked into the crowd and sang all of his best hits, including my current fave, American Saturday Night. It was a great evening and a very fun surprise for the birthday girl!