Tag: clare dunn

Travels: A food and music-filled trip to Nashville, 2017

(Attention: If you are only interested in the “food” section of this post, please scroll down to the bottom.)

This is the fourth year that Drew and I have attended CMA Fest in Nashville, TN, and I believe this one was the best yet! (minus a new complaint I’ll explain soon.)

We arrived Thursday morning around 9:30. After finally finding a parking spot and walking to the entrance of the Chevrolet Riverfront Stage (the biggest free stage, where Old Dominion was beginning the show), and waiting in line for about 45 minutes to get security checked, we finally made it to see the last two songs of Old Dominion. =(

Throughout the four day festival, we spent a lot of time at the Riverfront Stage, but also ventured out to the new Budweiser Dome, the new Crackerbarrel Stage,  and the usual Park Stage and Hard Rock Cafe Stage.  Here are some pics of just a few of the great acts we saw:

Chevrolet Riverfront Stage:

Bretty Young
Cam

Budweiser Dome Stage:

Maddie & Tae
Deana Carter
Lauren Alaina

Crackerbarrel Stage:

Danielle Peck

Park Stage:

Clare Dunn

Music City Center Stage:

Post Monroe

We also enjoyed a bit of time each day inside of FanFairX, where my complaint comes in. Years before, you can get in line to meet artists at their “meet and greets”. If you were there early, you could probably make the cut. However, this year, you now have to win a technology-based doorprize to be able to get in line to see these stars. So, I won nothing and got ZERO pics or autographs this year. Not cool, CMA Fest, not cool.
The best I could do was stand on the side and take embarrassing pictures of stars.

Kellie Pickler

However, there are a few stages in FanFairX as well, and we got to see a few great artists here as well, in the lovely air conditioning.

Hunter Hayes

One of my favorite things about CMA Fest is always enjoying the many “freebies” we come across. Here’s a blog post specifically showing all that we got this year: http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=972

 

THE FOOD!

In a very particular order, least favorite to favorite, here are the full blog posts of all four dinners we had while in Nashville. And yes, this was the best food weekend here yet!

Fresh to Order: http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=1019

The Wild Cow: http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=991

Thai Esane: http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=1024Otaku

Ramen: http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=1035

The only other restaurant I have drastically enjoyed in Nashville is Mas Tacos, which we visited last year.
If you have any other suggestions for places I MUST try during our next Nashville trip, please let me know in the comments!

 

 

Travels: My food and music-filled short trip to Nashville

Drew and I have gone to CMA fest twice before, and had planned to attend again this year as soon as we were driving home from it last year. We had an apartment booked for four nights (Thurs-Mon) on Airbnb, which we booked nine months ago. Everyone was off work. A house/ dog sitter was booked. We were pumped.
But things quickly turned south and we ended up only getting to stay one night. Here is the timeline of events, as well as posts about all of the food, of course.

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We arrived in Nashville around noon. It took about an hour to find a parking spot ($30 btw) and to walk the half mile to get to the Park stage, where the first act we wanted to see, Clare Dunn, was performing.
We first got to see Tucker Beathard, who sings “Rock On”. He was a good filler before Clare.

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Tucker Beathard, CMA Fest 2016

Clare was phenomenal. She sounded great and danced with high energy the whole concert. We even got to meet her the next morning at Fan Fair X.
*Spoiler alert: This was the only fun we had at CMA fest this year.

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After watching Clare, we had planned to go to the bigger free stage to see Maren Morris, Scotty McCreery, and then Terri Clark. However, the stage area was already completely full. There was no standing room anywhere, and they were locking it down due to too many people. So…snack time!

Blog post about Merchants, where I tried duck fat tater tots!
http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=330

After we ate, we headed back to the Park stage.
We saw Native Run here, who I have never heard of before. However, they were pretty good. I really liked their song “2 for 1”. Funny side note: I told Drew that their guitar player looked like the guy from Eden’s Edge. Drew argued I was being silly. I looked it up. Boom. That was him, Dean Berner. Also saw he is engaged to the lead singer of Native Run. I found this odd since I assumed she was married to her co-lead singer, as they almost kissed while holding each others’ faces during a couple songs. So weird.

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Native Run- CMA Fest 2016

After this, we headed to the apartment we rented in East Nashville. We then walked to Mas Tacos to try this place. Everything online raved about it, and it did NOT disappoint.

Blog post for Mas Tacos, Por Favor.
http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=320

With not too much else to do in the neighborhood, we headed in to Kroger to get some breakfast food items and snacks, in case we would need anything for the next four days. We headed back to the apartment afterwards. We were pretty tired, so we went to bed early.

At about 10:30 p.m., we were already asleep, and got a phone call that let us know our house sitter wasn’t going to be able to stay. So, we got our bffs…I think you know them by now. Cristianna and Lindsay? (who let the dogs out earlier that day) to take care of them the next morning. We planned to head back home Friday after we shortly hit up Fan Fair X. We had bought four day tickets to it, and I was at least going to see what it was all about before heading home.

So, the next day, we packed up the car, headed straight to Fan Fair X at CMA fest. We didn’t have time for a sit down breakfast, but ended up having the best breakfast at a food truck.
Blog post on Banh Mi and Roll Factory Food Truck: http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=318

Then, at Fan Fair X, we met Clare Dunn, Ashton Shepherd, got to peek at a few other singers like Jamie Lynn Spears and RaeLynn (didn’t care to stand in line to meet them. No offense, ladies, your lines were long).

We also got to hear Chip Easton (Deacon from Nashville) announce officially that Nashville had been picked up for another season by CMT and Hulu. This was awesome, I was so upset when ABC cancelled it last month. So, me and a million other people got very excited. Can you see Chip way up there? He’s on stage, I promise.

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The last person I wanted to see before heading home was Lila McCann. She was one of the first cds I ever bought and I grew up loving her first cd. However, before she took the stage, the Bellamy Brothers performed. They were pretty great as they sang “Redneck Girl”, “Let Your Love Flow”, and many others.

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Bellamy Brothers: CMA Fest 2016

Finally, we got to see Lila. We only stuck around to hear the two songs I was looking for to: “Down Came a Blackbird” and “I Wanna Fall in Love”. She was good, but a little underwhelming. Oh well.

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On the way home, we HAD to stop for lunch at Loveless Cafe, of course.
Blog post about Loveless Cafe:
http://twogirlsonedish.com/?p=260

Overall, this trip sucked. It was shortened, the airbnb apartment was pretty gross, and the crowds at CMA Fest made getting close to certain stages impossible. I don’t know if I will want to try going to this again next year, depends on who the line up is, I guess.

I do know I want to go back to Nashville, though, to experience the city and finish eating all of the foods on my list.