The scene is but all too familiar.
Growing up around farmland, I had become accustomed to green, rolling hills dotted with hay bales and cow pastures that rustled with the morning breeze and were laced with the dew of a new Southern dawn.
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Now, barns and silos begin to stretch themselves into my view once again as I make the drive from the University of Tennessee campus to Greenback, Tennessee, where Luke Bryan is hosting yet another concert on yet another stop of his 2015 Farm Tour.
After postponing last week's show because of rain, Bryan has returned in triumphant fashion to East Tennessee. The cowboy boots and sundresses are certainly aplenty, and the lines full of Southern belles waiting to see the man many of them wish to be their backside-shaking husband stretch from the makeshift metal gates all the way to the backroads everyone had to drive through to get here.
I'll admit, I wasn't a Luke Bryan fan for a while. That was in middle school, when he wasn't as popular and his crazy antics just seemed annoying.
Enter my freshman year of high school.
I sheepishly attended one of his concerts with a girl I was dating at the time, and it turned out to be an absolute blast and a time I won't soon forget.
Fast forward five years later. I'm a freshman in college and believe myself to be more of a country music connoisseur than I was at my last Luke Bryan experience, and I'm meeting some friends from Chattanooga for the concert. We wait in anticipation (and, for us guys specifically, angst) for the music, the "bodily movements," and the screams that never fail to follow shortly thereafter.
Needless to say, the Leesburg, Georgia, native knows how to put on a show no matter what gender may be in attendance.
After listening to three acts preceding the peanut-farming superstar's performance and preparing themselves for the madness that will soon ensue, the crowd slowly begins to chant.
The words "WE WANT LUKE" rise like a fog into the Tennessee sky, swirling with the stage smoke and building toward an inevitable explosion.
The screaming mounts into a crescendo, the smoke pours from the machines and envelops the stage, and a motor begins to roar. The motor screams, the bass thumps, and somewhere in the hazy, darkened distance, an electric guitar begins to moan the first notes of one of Luke Bryan's more recent tunes, "Kick The Dust Up."
Right on cue, Bryan sprints into the madness, albeit above the crowd because of the stage, and begins to belt his newest hit with reckless abandon. Before launching into a full-blown song, however, Bryan loudly admits that he's been "sick as sh*t," which quickly explains a noticeable crack in his voice.
Despite the sickness, this country music superstar would not let nature get the best of him yet again. He raises a lone fist and informs the eager crowd that even though he would be under the weather for the entire night, he "wasn't canceling this damn show."
At this moment, my already solid respect for a country music performer that behaves unlike any other grows tenfold.
With the help of screaming (and some flashing) blondes and some Tennessee whiskey, Bryan chokes his way through a couple hits, thanking the crowd multiple times for their support in such dire circumstances.
(Dire isn't really the right word. The girls shriek with glee whenever he "shakes it," cold or no cold.)
Bryan struggles later on, but he regains and perhaps even doubles the crowd's adoration when he claims his "voice was hoarse from screamin' when the Vols beat Georgia on Saturday."
This combined with the singing of Rocky Top fuel the fire of a crowd chock-full of Volunteer faithful.
After another long, successful day at the office, Bryan and his band finally close up shop. The crowd slowly begins to disperse into the darkness to locate their cars, and while some are obviously too intoxicated to drive, this is certainly something I won't soon forget.
The setting reminds me of a place and people I once knew but still hold dear, and the music works wonders in Bryan's fans like nothing else can. It's really amazing what music can do if we let it, but it's even more amazing what a simple change in place can do for a change in perspective.
While walking around a pond from the "parking lot" to the ticket gate and lifting my boots through the grass and mud, I remember the times I've gone fishing at ponds just like this one with my dad and grandfather in rural Arkansas.
When I see the carnival-like food stands set up all around the farm's property, I recall the Teapot Festival in my grandmother's hometown of Trenton, Tennessee, and I remember how similar it seemed to the town described in Justin Moore's "Small Town, USA." These memories keep me sane. They keep me level-headed in times of stress, and they keep me coming back whenever an atmosphere such as this one is involved.
Luke, from one guy to another, you gave this crowd one heck of a show. Thanks for a great time and for keeping the girl who flung an article of clothing at you from getting thrown out.
You're a gutsy, raw, undeterred performer, and you're one heck of a wingman as well because I got her number later on that night. Thanks for another unforgettable experience, and see you next year.
