Bluegrass

On Tuesday evening we went out for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays and I treated myself to a bacon cheeseburger with fries. Yummy. Then we went to the Brooks Center on campus to see the Ricky Scaggs and Kentucky Thunder concert. The Brooks Center seats only 1000 and we had great seats in the front row of the mezzanine level right near the center. Perfect seats with no rows in front of us. It was a sold out show, all the floor level seats had gone to the Brooks Center members so we were lucky to have got our tickets at all. The Center has a new dress policy of 'come as you are' so we didn't need to dress up. People of all ages were there, from blue haired theatre ladies to students in raggy tshirts. The band played lots of bluegrass standards from Monroe, Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and others, including what Ricky called the bluegrass anthem 'Uncle Pen', and lots of songs from his recent and upcoming albums. Ricky has won many Grammys and his band Kentucky Thunder is apparently the best instrumental bands in the country right now - they have won the Grammy 6 of the last 7 years. What a tight group. Ricky sure is picky about his tuning - he had to keep tuning before each song but during it he would be entertaining us in that typical southern way with stories about family, food and good times. We are lucky to have heard them in such a small venue. Although in the video they all look far away, in real life I could see every string on the instruments and every facial expression. Everyone around us was tapping and clapping and hollering. Excellent show!