If there's one thing I enjoy more than stuntin' on my haters it's treating Lydia like a pretty pretty princess. I was able to check both of those boxes by buying us a couple of tickets to see Nelly aka St. Louis Jesus at the Washington State Fair.
What remained a secret surprise to Lydia is that I ponied up for some front row seats.
In a strange and ultimately sad turn of events we also ended up with a couple of free tickets to see Sammy Hagar at White River Amphiteatre on the exact same day. "It's impossible to do both of those shows in the same day", you may be saying to yourself. You would be right.
The show portrayed itself as an afternoon matinee type thing, but that turned out to be a lie. We drove out there, stood in line to get in, dealt with all the hoopla, then realized that they had tricked us into getting there early just to buy stuff, and the show wouldn't be for hours. Sad. They were decent seats though so I gave them to a less fortunately ticketed couple before we left. The guy shook my hand so I felt like I did my good deed for the day.
Fun fact: Sammy Hagar often credits St. Louis fans and the radio station KSHE in St. Louis with helping to launch his professional career.
I was in my Cardinals gear for Nelly but I got a few shout outs from the Hagar fans as well.
We hit Muckleshoot on the way.
One nice thing about buying tickets to shows at the Washington State Fair is that your ticket includes admission. I believe for the Illinois fair you have to pay separately, which is a scam.
We didn't manage to taste the Fisher fair scones last time we visited so that was top of my list. They were really good.
These heathens call their corn dogs "krusty pups". It's not right.
We test drove the ID.4, an electric SUV from Volkswagen. I think we liked it a lot and may buy one one of these days. I have come to loathe alt-right Elon Musk so my dreams of buying a Tesla someday have morphed into buying an EV from anyone but Tesla.
Nice to see some St. Louis products all the way out here.
It was fun walking around in our Cardinals gear because people got really excited about it. I think I got maybe 7 head nods or "go STL!" from people. We had two full blown conversations with people who wanted to tell us their story.
I thought it was funny that some of them didn't even seem to know Nelly was in town, they were just casual St. Louis refugees like us. One guy said he knows Nelly and went to school with his parents. He was in WA because he had retired from the military while stationed there. He said he was from the Ville, which is a historic African-American neighborhood located in North St. Louis.
I didn't tell Lydia where our seats were. We just kept walking closer and closer to the stage until we sat right in front of it. The opening act was Breland, which I didn't care for at all. I think Lydia liked him more than I did. Unfortunately when you're in the front row your disdain is a lot more of a message to the artist. I stayed seated the whole time, not to be rude but I just needed to conserve my batteries for the upcoming religious experience.
I like Nelly a lot. The guy had hits for days.
City Spud was a fun addition to the show. I didn't know that much about him but he was super important to Nelly's first album but then went to prison for a while. I think the story was that he didn't have a car so he needed a ride to a drug deal. The person that was driving maybe decided they were just going to kill the other person and take both the money and drugs? Anyway he got some accomplice charge and missed Nelly hitting the big time. So for example in the music videos someone else is singing his verses. Pretty sad story really, but I feel like City getting to tour with Nelly now is not too shabby of a consolation prize.
I was hoping that our STL gear would give us some extra love from the big man but he didn't really every make eye contact. He was always sort of looking into space no matter how close he was. I wonder if he's just keeping himself in the zone and not letting himself get distracted. City Spud on the other hand I feel like did notice us.
I've heard all of these songs 800 times so it was fun to see them play around with them and make them into something fresh that I could still recognize. I also don't think I've ever seen an artist thank the audience for their support so profusely as Nelly. He also gives a shoutout to St. Louis in this particular video, which I think is amazing. He's been keeping it real all this time and supporting his hometown, even as far as rural Washington.
Lydia been ridin' with Nelly since day one.
At one point he did some good boasting and shade throwing. Something to the effect of was doing country crossover hits before "anyone ever heard of any 'Old Town Road'". Fun fact: this is actually not our first Nelly show. We went to a free outdoor show in Downtown St. Louis. There were a gillion people there and we couldn't see a thing. Oh how the turns have tabled.
Nelly's show made me tear up a little. It made me reminisce about St. Louis and miss my friends I left behind. I distinctly remember listening to his songs in our warmup music in high school basketball. It made me think about how far I’ve come in my own life and all its twists and turns. In some ways I don't expect another show from another artist to make me feel the way I did about this one. Maybe I just need to go to more Nelly shows!
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