A Frenetic Fortnight: Reggae, NPR Nerd Worship, Hockey & Soccer

Over the last couple weeks, we have attended several events, some of which we have done before, but all of which are worth a mention:

Wednesday, March 15:
We attended a show by the unique musical artist, Trevor Hall, at Exit/In in  Nashville tonight.  We learned about Trevor last year on one of the music cruises that we did.  The surprisingly-powerful voice and reggae-influenced songs coming out this small-framed Caucasian are hard to forget.   There was a surprisingly large crowd at the venue given that it was mid-week show and the fact that Trevor's music isn't widely known (we thought).  The shows we saw by Trevor on the cruise were acoustic, but this plugged-in performance was very good, and our vantage point at the front left-side of the stage gave us an up-close look at Trevor's amazing lead guitarist, Aaron Dugan, as he performed some real magic with his instrument (see video below for some brief proof).  There was also a good opener named Cas Haley.  He also has a nice reggae sound for a "white guy" but he's a total opposite of Trevor since he's a rather large-framed dude.

Monday, March 19: 
We got to see one of our favorite National Public Radio hosts and public television star, Rick Steves, tonight talking about his and one our favorite subjects -travel - over at Vanderbilt University.  The two-hour lecture was entitled "Travel as a Political Act" of which Steves has a new book out of the same title.  There was a large crowd in attendance for the free lecture which turned out to be very interesting, entertaining (we weren't expecting the soft-spoken NPR host to use such terms as "balls" and "horny" in his lecture) and informative.  Thanks to our friend, Caroline, for joining us for the lecture and for going to dinner with us before at the always-great Bosco's.  EDITOR'S NOTE: (5/28/12).  We bought a copy of the book at the lecture and I got a chance to read it on a recent trip we took to Europe.  It was great and actually pretty informative in helping with our visit to Amsterdam.

Tuesday, March 20:
We attended the pro hockey game of the Nashville Predators vs. the Edmonton Oilers tonight with awesome seats on the glass.  We had done this for the first time back in January with four of our friends and loved it.   These were the same seats, but this time we attended with our friends, Chris and Tarryn, who missed out on the chance to get seats the last time we bought them since only six seats are available from the ticket broker we use: Ticketsnow.com.  Another one of the six seats came open and our friend, Wayne, joined us again also.  For future reference, these seats are Section 106, Aisle CC, Seats 15 - 20.  We had a great time as before with the action so close to us and the opponent's penalty box right in front of our seats.  I had brought some funny signs to put up when an Edmonton player was in the box and the best response was a hearty laugh by their center and captain, Shawn Horcoff, when he read the sign "Never Heard of You???"  Unfortunately, as back in January when we had these seats, the Preds were again soundly defeated by a score of 6-3.  Chris says good-naturedly that  I am bad luck to the team since they have only one once when I am in attendance of a game (that is true) and I am starting to believe him!!

Monday, March 26:
Tonight we attended the U.S. Under-23 Men's Soccer Team game vs. El Salvador at LP Field in Nashville.  This was actually the third of three Olympic-qualifying tournament games for the U.S.team here that I saw, but the first for Ashlee since she was out of town on business during the first two games the previous week vs.Cuba (a 6-0 throttling by the U.S.) and Canada (a tough 0-2 loss).  With one win and one loss, this game became very pivotal in the chances of the U.S. moving on to qualify for the Olympics this summer in London, since only the top 2 teams from this tournament advance to the next round.  It came down to a gut-wrenching 3-3 tie that knocked the U.S. out of contention.  The hardest thing to accept was the 3-2 U.S. lead that was blown in the fourth minute of stoppage time (i.e. there was only about 30 seconds left in the game).  Still, it was a beautiful night for a game and it was a thrilling contest from start to finish.  There was a large contingent of fans for El Salvador in attendance and they couldn't have been more gracious in the jubilation of the win.  Thanks to our friends, John and Monique, for attending the game with us, as well as meeting for an excellent dinner beforehand at The Yellow Porch Restaurant over in the Berry Hill community.