Rock-n-Romp

I was so looking forward to last Saturday's Rock-n-Romp. We had a beautiful venue (The Dixon's South Lawn); a great line up; free BBQ from Central BBQ; Live from Memphis was filming; the B Team was in town; and my bestie, Hope, was flying in just in time to catch the last band.

Friday afternoon was filled with doom and gloom from the weather watchers, but I refused to believe that we'd be rained out. In fact, rain wasn't going to be a problem since we had the Hughes Pavillion to use, but tornadoes and floods? Those would pose a problem.

On Saturday morning, Justin Willingham's voice blared from my bedside radio and told of both flooding and possible tornadoes until 10pm that night. I went into an immediate, deep depression, and started screaming, "Damn, you, Justin Willingham!" Then I actually started considering our first ever cancellation.

Luckily, Chip, our designated weather man, said to wait and see how things looked at noon, just as we had planned.

By eleven, the dire warnings had expired and we only had about an hour of rain to contend with from 1-2pm. Elated, I headed for the Dixon and started setting up. By 3pm, we had the most beautiful day you ever saw, and soon 600 people joined us in and around the Hughes Pavillion for an afternoon of great music, food, and fun.

You can read the official recap Chip and I posted here. What's missing from that is how cute Miles was in his tuxedo. That kid loves to dress up! I was personally thrilled that he was into tuxedos primarily due to Gustafer Yellowgold's song "Pteradactyl's Tuxedo" on the CD/DVD I sent him and Natasha at Christmas.

My friend, Hope's, plane didn't make it in time for her to experience RnR, but there were plenty of new faces at the show and I was glad to see that a few people who'd been promising to come finally made it. I got interviewed for our upcoming Flipside Memphis video and Warren & Jiro finally got their picture taken with the "I'm on Board" skateboard.


There's lots that goes into putting on a Rock-n-Romp. We've got a ten person board this year and several volunteers to help us, thank goodness. I was only scheduled to "work" for one hour, but I ended up busily checking up on things throughout the afternoon. (i.e. Did the bands get paid? Do we need more beer? Any BBQ left? Are kids staying out of the trees?)

In addition to that, Satchel and Jiro were among the "free range kids" at the show and I only heard from them if they needed water or a bandana. (The latter was unfortunately need for a little brother induced bloody nose!)

Despite all of this, and a complete lack of photos to prove it, I did manage to have a great time. I love seeing all the mamas and papas and babies having a good time. It's amazing how each show pans out and somehow gets better and better.