Our Night with the Stars

One thing that continues to amaze Brandon and I about Nashville is how many opportunities there are to do very cool things for free. We feel so blessed by our generous friends, as well as our friends who are knowledgeable about what's happening in the city for free. We've had so many amazing experiences because of them! 

This past week a songwriting friend of Brandon's invited us to go with her to the taping of the CMA's Christmas Special. Technically, we were seat fillers, so we didn't have to pay to get in, we just weren't sure how good our seats would be. We waited around to fill seats and to our advantage, one of the staff asked us to go down to the lower section to fill in seats there - we were only 5 rows from the stage! 

Performing at the show were artists Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Little Big Town, Sugarland, Kellie Pickler, Rascal Flatts, Darius Rucker, Keith Urban, Brian Sezter, Brad Paisley, Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Scotty McCreery, and Lauren Alaina. Each performed one or two Christmas songs - it was neat to see their personalities a bit during the taping, especially when they had to stop and start over. At one point, the producer stopped Darius and Darius responded by saying "What? That was hot!". A different time Kellie Pickler messed up and when she did said "Sh*t" and the producer responded by telling everyone that she was now on Santa's naughty list. The event was very fun and we enjoyed both the music and entertainment! Here are a few pics: 

We were close enough to hear him talking in his Australian accent. :)

The finale.

Jennifer Nettles from Sugarland

Darius Rucker

Not a great pic, but Rascal Flatts

Vince Gill - at one point, he also performs with Miss Piggy.

Little Big Town

Scott McCreery

Brad Paisley performing with Brian Setzer and his big band.

Faith Hill - gorgeous! 

Martina's dress was my favorite of the night. 

The CMA's Christmas Special airs on December 1st - make sure to watch for us, especially during Kellie Pickler's song (she came over to us to hand out cds). We had a blast at this event and will definitely look for more opportunities to be 'seat fillers' if it means having a similar experience to this!