Country Music
Kelley Finnegan
Country Music
Tim McGraw Endorses Bud Light
Taylor Swift Endorses Band Hero
Carrie Underwood Endorses Vitamin Water
My Pop Culture Essay:
I attended my first country concert the summer after my junior year of high school. It was a big deal and everyone seemed to be planning for weeks ahead of time. Where would we meet? Who was riding with who? What kind of beer would we be drinking? I remember being excited because I was going to the concert with everyone from my new high school (I had only been there for a year). Everyone from my old high school was also going so I could not wait to see all the people that I had not had a chance to see all year.
We all met in the Food Lion parking lot of our neighborhood and hopped in trucks to caravan to the concert. Confederate flags were flying from vehicles and everyone had their country music blaring. We all went to Subway to get food for the day and every high schooler scrambled to find someone older to buy them beer.
Once in the parking lot, everyone piled out of vehicles and quickly jumped into the beds of trucks to pull cans of beer out of coolers. We tried to be as discrete as possible as we poured beer into red Solo cups, as though Nissan Pavilion security and the Prince William County police did not know what was in our cups. It was amazing to me how everyone seemed to come together for whatever concert it was. There were high school students and people who had graduated and had come back from college. We were all together again in one place bonding over music which we loved. Even those who didn’t necessarily love country music would come to the concerts to tailgate and see friends they hadn’t seen in a while. Sometimes people would not even buy a ticket and would just hang out to tailgate with friends.
Since that first country concert, I have attended many, many concerts over the years. Around March, my friends and I always seem to be talking about how we can’t wait for country concert season to begin. Many people buy their “Mega Pass,” giving them a discount on lawn tickets for all the big country concerts at Nissan Pavilion that summer. In the past few years of attending country concerts, I have made friends and lost friends. I’ve seen many fights and many arrests. I have taken care of friends when they’ve had a little too much to drink. I have watched romances begin and end. However, with all these things that seem to change over the years, one thing never changes: Country concerts have become the major way that my friends and I get together and spend time with each other.
Just this past summer, I attended five concerts. First, I attended WMZQfest in May, our local radio station’s festival. The lineup included Rodney Atkins, Joe Nichols, and Little Big Town. In June, I attended George Strait with Blake Shelton and Julianne Hough. George Strait is a country music legend and this summer was the first time I had heard him live in concert. It was my best friend’s 21st birthday the next day so we were celebrating for her. Later in June, we attended the Rascal Flatts concert. They were touring with Darius Rucker. I have seen Rascal Flatts many times but had never seen Darius Rucker and really enjoyed his performance. This was the first time that I started to feel like Rascal Flatts was too commercialized. The next country concert was Brad Paisley in July. However, I sold my tickets to this concert and we attended Sea Ray’s Aquapalooza at Tim’s Rivershore in Stafford. While it wasn’t at our usual venue, it was an amazing new experience. I had never attended Aquapalooza before but it is called the largest country concert of the year. Across the nation, Sea Ray hosts Aquapalooza all on that one day. Everywhere people bring boats out on the water where a stage is set up on a lake. We walked around the river all day, drinking beer and enjoying music. It was a very wild experience! Just recently I attended the Kenny Chesney concert at the end of August. He toured with Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum. I have seen Kenny Chesney and Miranda Lambert before but they were both amazing again! The last concert of the season is Toby Keith next weekend. I hope I’ll be attending that one as well!
From the beginning, country concerts became an important part of my summer break ritual. Especially after moving and attending a new high school, they seemed to be the most reliable way of seeing friends that I hadn’t seen in months because school, dance, and life just always got in the way. Since I left for college, they have become an even more important part of life. While many people from my high school came to CNU to pursue a degree, there are still even more friends who are at various schools across the nation. While home on summer break, we always try to plan a dinner here or a party there, but there is always the inevitable few who cannot be there – like our friend Victoria who plays soccer at Florida State or Ryan who plays baseball at University of Georgia, among many others. Country concerts seem to be the one thing that everyone comes home for and the one time that we are all back together again. More than just loving the music itself, I love the people that I see when I attend these few concerts a summer.
As I mentioned before, I have made and lost friends over the years and country concerts always seem to be one major part of those transformations. I met my now-fiance at a country concert. Many of the best friends that we now have are people that we met at concerts and later bonded with and grew to love. Country concerts are important to me because they have become one of the few things that I can still look forward to in my college, working, moving towards adulthood life.
Unfortunately, there have been a few times when other obligations have prevented me from attending a concert here and there. Now, while this may not seem like a big deal to those who don’t understand the culture, it is a big deal to me! Looking at Facebook pictures following the concert and seeing all of the people who went and had a blast; getting phone calls from friends when a song comes on that reminds them of me; hearing all the drama that went down – who got wasted, who got in a fight, who got kicked out, who lost their phone, etc – and knowing that I wasn’t there to see it first-hand; all these things make me disappointed when I know I can’t attend one concert out of the many that whole summer. They are just something that I really don’t want to miss, especially when I look forward to the concerts all year long.
As I have stressed, country concerts have become a way for the people from my hometown to come together and build community. However, we are also part of a much larger community as well. It is amazing to me how many people attend one concert. According to Wikipedia, Nissan Pavilion can seat 25,000 people, making it the largest music venue in the Washington Metropolitan area. Typically, the lawn sells out for many of the country concerts we attend as well as many of the good orchestra seats. There are thousands of people all in one place singing and dancing to one country music icon. It is amazing to see how large the country music community is just at Nissan Pavilion. In addition, this large group of people is part of an even greater community of country music fans worldwide. Wikipedia explains that country music has been around for many years but did not truly gain popularity until the 1920s. Its popularity has grown over the years. In fact, Wikipedia claims that while music sales in most musical genres have declined, “country music experienced one of its best years in 2006, when, during the first six months, U.S. sales of country albums increased by 17.7 percent to 36 million.” It is absolutely amazing the number of people that come together over this musical genre.
Since my first country concert back over the summer after my junior year of high school, our concert rituals have changed slightly. While we sometimes still meet in the Food Lion parking lot, which is now called Bloom, and get Subway, that is not something we always do every time. We are able to leave at different times rather than all caravanning because we found a spot to tailgate before actually entering the concert. While the actual location is secret (haha), it is a culdesac back before you get to the actual pavilion. We all pull in there and tailgate for a good majority of the time. This gives everyone time to get there when the want to rather than all having to leave at noon. In addition, we have found that police never come there (knock on wood), so it has become a safe place to tailgate. Usually, a little time after the gates open, we still enter the parking lot all together to tailgate – not much has changed since my first country concert experience.
Country concerts are a major part of my personal culture and have become a community which I love to be a part of. The songs of country artists are songs I can relate to. They are songs about love and hate, hard work, and everything else. They are songs about life. The concerts have become a way for myself and my friends to build community with each other. Often they are the only times when we can all be together in one place, as college often keeps us separated. I imagine that I will be attending country concerts for many years to come.