While in Nashville we definitely wanted to visit the Grand Ole Opry.  We checked the schedule and found that by extending our stay by a couple of days we could see a show featuring the Charlie Daniels band (The Devil went down to Georgia) and Brad Paisley.  We like both of these artists, so we decided to shorten our next couple of stops so we could see that show.

We were not disappointed!!  First, the Opry is no longer held in the original building which was quite small and right downtown.  The new theatre is large and outside of town which made getting there much easier!

Shows at the Grand Ole Opry are all broadcast LIVE on the radio and have been for years.  The Grand Ole Opry is the longest running live radio show ever.  And they do put on quite a show.  One aspect that is unique is that they don’t have one “BIG” name and maybe an opening band.  The Opry often has 8 or more performers.  Some are old favorites…in addition to the Charlie Daniels band we got to see Randy Owens from the group Alabama.  Some are new performers – we saw two young girls (both 19) who were performing at the Opry for the first time.  They were “Maddie and Tae”.  They also had two performers that we’d never heard of but if you watch the TV show Nashville you would recognize them.  We didn’t keep a program so I don’t know their names.

Anyway, they also have an announcer, and for a half-hour before the show starts a different announcer comes out and keeps everyone entertained.  He interacts with the audience, finding out where folks are from – Holland was the furthest that anyone came to be there specifically to attend the Grand Ole Opry.  He found out a couple was here during their honeymoon, and a couple was here to celebrate their 63rd anniversary!  He also picked a person “at random” from the audience and that person was called up on stage during the show to participate in a quiz about country music.  We both had the answer right, but the poor girl didn’t have a clue.

Another unique feature is that one band doesn’t perform for a long time.  Brad Paisley did 4 songs.  Charlie Daniels did 3.  The other performers did 2 each.  That keeps the show entertaining and short!  The show we saw was dedicated to the St. Jude’s Hospital and the Grand Ole Opry foundation supports it financially.  They had a guest announcer who was a 9 year old cancer survivor, real cute although quite shy to find herself up on stage in front of hundreds of people.

An interesting fact about the Grand Ole Opry – they invite performers to be “members” but to be a member you have to perform 20 times that first year!  After that I don’t know how often they have to perform.

By the time we bought tickets most of the good seats were gone, and we ended up in the ‘nose-bleed’ section.  But, because of the huge monitors they had we were able to see the performers pretty well, and we could see the stage pretty well to get the ‘whole picture’.  It was a great experience!

The one bad thing was that we didn’t take the camera, figuring they wouldn’t allow pictures and flash.  But they did!  So, we did get a few pictures with my phone, but they aren’t real good quality.  Darn!  But, here they are: