I debated even writing this shit, y’all. Somehow, we’ve managed to go the entire pandemic without our comments section devolving into a Hip Mt. Juliet post about whether or not covid is even real. We’ve stayed out of it in a concerted effort to actually get your minds off of what’s going on in the world, so that maybe you can get a break from all that. And, I greatly hope that this post doesn’t break that spirit today. In my eight years of doing this, I’ve found that you never really know what’s going to go viral. Sometimes, shit you’d never think people would care about gets thousands of pageviews. Other times, you’ll write something you believe to be a knockout only for 50 people to read it. So, hell – there’s a chance no one even sees this. But, there’s also the chance that a lot of Nashville sees it. I’ve slept on it for two nights, and I’ve concluded that it is just too perfect of a story in the worst way possible not to share it with the world. FFS, this is one of the rare chances I get as a blogger to do live actual journalism, and not just mean that as a tongue-in-cheek jab at the nature of my work. So, here we go – the story of Stoney Keeley, Garth Brooks, Nissan Stadium, and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
At the time I made my decision to go along with my fiancé to see this show, the state of the world was a little bit different. We were all a little more optimistic. Masks were coming off, covid cases were falling, and it felt like the world was starting to get back on track to “normal.” But, I’ll admit – the day of the show, I was a nervous wreck. I kept thinking that maybe we were just a little too overeager to get back out into the world. One thing I’ve learned about myself over the last year and a half is that I’m actually okay with never getting into a large group of people ever again, whether there’s a virus taking over the world or not. So, part of it wasn’t even the virus at all. I had covid back in December. I was fully vaccinated as of April 2021 – so, I thought, “hell, I guess this is what we got the shot for, right?” Some of y’all will probably say I deserve to die of covid for this, and that’s fine. But, before any of y’all praise this decision, just know that you’d probably be more likely to call me a ‘libtard’ if you actually knew me. Point is….I was well aware of the fact that this was not the smartest decision I’ve ever made as I walked through the gates at Nissan Stadium. But, let’s set the stage for our story here today.
We didn’t want to pay the egregious parking prices at Nissan Stadium or downtown. So, we thought we would be slick and park in Midtown and catch a Lyft over to the stadium. It worked like a charm – we left our house in Mount Juliet around 3PM, stopped at our favorite spot in town, Nectar: Urban Cantina in Donelson, for an early dinner, and then we met a co-worker of my fiancé’s in Midtown. It took eight minutes for us to catch a Lyft, and while it took us quite awhile to get over to the pedestrian bridge from Midtown, all things considered, it was a success. We filed into Nissan Stadium, and made it to our seats just fine. We saw Chris Young sing “Famous Friends,” and I began to settle in a little bit, thinking, “okay, maybe this isn’t so bad – lotta open air up in this bitch.” But, I noticed some lightning off in the distance, and I brought it up to my fiancé, saying, “I don’t really think that’s ideal right now.” Emmylou Harris took the stage, and we got a nice surprise when Trisha Yearwood joined her. But, the lightning appeared to be getting closer. I tried to check out @NashSevereWX on Twitter to see what was going on, but I had absolutely no service whatsoever. Just as I was about to say, “I don’t think we should be out here,” the stadium lights kicked on and the announcer came over the PA to tell us we were now under a lightning advisory and we needed to head to the concourse.
My stomach sank. “Great – as if I wasn’t already anxious to all high hell just being here...” We filed into the concourse, where we were packed in like sardines. I immediately started clearing my plans for the next two weeks. I was really relieved that I had shown Brandon where all the important SoBros Network business docs are at in my office when he came over to podcast on Monday night. If only I had gotten that last will and testament done, I might’ve felt a little bit better. Nonetheless, we stood watching the storm go by with virtually no air circulation and sweat racing out of every pore. I’m not kidding – by the time we were able to move again, there was a puddle of sweat as round as I am underneath where I was standing. It was a surreal scene. After over a year of being conditioned to stay away from people, and being perfectly fine with it, I found myself shoulder to shoulder with total strangers. It was the absolute worst case scenario – “Stoney, you fucking moron.”
We ended up standing there, packed in on the concourse, for right around two hours. After about an hour, I started feeling really tense and claustrophobic. Had I not been on my best behavior because my fiancé’s coworker was with us, there was a good chance I probably would’ve said something to somebody that would’ve gotten me socked in the jaw. There were plenty of people there that looked like the type to just sock somebody in the jaw for no reason, much less when someone actually runs their mouth. Most of us were pretty on edge. The rest of us belted out in a chorus of “Friends in Low Places.” THAT made for an eerie scene, at least to me. Here’s this thunderstorm making everyone nervous. Most people were looking around, concerned. Yet, here’s this weird party going on down the concourse. Lightning crashed, seemingly directly overhead, and people screamed and gasped. I felt like I was in a fucking war zone for a moment. That feeling really solidified when we started to see people around us dropping like flies. Drunk people, packed in tight together, and overheating is not a good combination. Those poor EMTs – I’m not kidding, for a spell of about 30 minutes, people were running through the crowd, flagging them down left and right. I’ve stayed, for the most part, off the internet since Saturday. So, if this information is out there, I’d love to know, but it seemed like there were a lot of incidents going on simultaneously. That really hammered home the anxious feeling that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. Oh, and an old man was puking in a trash can nearby at one point. Charming.
Even I began to get a little woozy until my fiancé trekked up to the concession stand to get us some waters. That’s why us introverted dudes need strong women in our lives for – I was perfectly content to just pass out of heat exhaustion and let the EMTs, who I already felt sorry for, deal with my 280-pound corpse because I didn’t want to touch anybody and I was afraid that if anything came out of my mouth at that time, it would be “fuck you, hillbilly.” It was the first of many times that night that I had just accepted my fate.
Around 9PM, we started to notice the herd thinning out a bit. I just assumed people were passing out, but watching the aisles, I noticed that people seemed to be just forcing their way back to their seats like they didn’t care if they were struck by lightning. We had a little more room to breath, but I was starting to wonder just what the fuck was going on. Were we just going to stand there all night to see who would be the last one standing? At 9:30PMish, I noticed a surge of people heading towards the exits. The doors to the stadium opened, people flooded out into the parking lot, and it wasn’t long before security came by instructing people to leave. Cool – there’s a violent lightning storm outside, and they’re just kicking us out. Best of luck.
We waited a bit to let the crowd die down. Plus, I actually found a fan that no one was around. Considering I was soaking wet with sweat, I took the opportunity to try and dry off…a foolish idea. We knew we weren’t going to get anywhere quickly because of what a nightmare the traffic situation was outside, so we were content to take our time. Eventually, the rain died down a bit, and we decided we’d have to try and get across the Pedestrian Bridge to catch a Lyft back to Midtown to get our car. All was merry and bright – we didn’t get to watch our show, but at least we found resolution, and could go home to rest and cool off.
We made it to the lawn adjacent to Nissan Stadium before the bottom fell out again…raining sideways, and lightning out the ass. There was nowhere for us to go except for some METAL STAIRS near the stadium entrance. I guess they’re there for the Music City Grand Prix next weekend. Thinking it would just blow over, and feeling like we didn’t really have a choice, we huddled up under these stairs to dry off a bit and regroup (this is where the featured image on this post was taken – you can see on my face that I was dead inside at this point). We were checking Lyft. We were checking Uber. I was trying to check the weather, and couldn’t get my phone to do anything. Our options were to huddle under metal stairs, or make a run for it and get caught up on a metal bridge during a lightning storm. This was the second time that night that I had conceded to my inevitable death. “This is how I’m gonna go…” After about 45 minutes of standing there waiting to be struck by lightning, I looked down and realized the lawn had flooded to the point that we were standing in just-about-ankle-deep water. I chuckled. At that point, “of course….why not? Flooding…“
I overheard the guys next to us (there were probably close to 50 of us huddled under these stairs) saying that “in about four or five minutes, we’re going to get a break, and we should run for it.” That’s all I needed to hear. In my mind, we needed to be on the move at all times, even if it meant we had to walk our happy asses all the way back to Midtown. I was outvoted on that suggestion, by the way. Remember, at the time, we’re thinking that we don’t have service because of Nissan Stadium traffic…not because there are some major issues all across town and no one’s rideshare apps are working at the time. So, we get our break in the rain, and we make a run for it. The plan is to just get across the bridge, and catch a ride on 2nd Avenue. I got my cardio in for the day, that’s for sure.
We make it across the Pedestrian Bridge, and settle in under it on 2nd Avenue. That’s when we discovered something was going on with the traffic, and no one was getting Lyft or Uber rides, even away from the stadium. People were coming up to us asking if our app was wigging out, too. And, yeah – the apps just simply were not working…whether it was a technical glitch, or there just weren’t enough drivers on the road, I don’t know. Somewhere in here, during this time, my fiancé just quietly muttered, “we’re stranded.” I figured that wasn’t the time to bring up the idea of just walking to Midtown again…
It was 11:30PM before someone even accepted our ride. The whole reason we didn’t just tough it out in the rain to begin with is because we thought no one would let us in their car if we were soaking wet. Well, that was out the window whenever homeboy pulled up. I actually felt shame in my soul when I got out of that car and saw the rain and sweat pooled where my ass just was. He couldn’t get up 2nd Avenue, so we walked from where we were up the block to catch him on the corner of Demonbreun. Still, it took him about 30 minutes to get to us, and it took us about 30 minutes to get from Demonbreun to Midtown. All in all, between walking in the rain and standing under that bridge, shifting from the 2nd Avenue side to the 1st Avenue side, trying to get a ride, we were in this stage of our evening for close to three hours. We were probably in better shape than others – I heard from our reigning defending SoBro of the Year, Brittany, as the lightning advisory set in. Her crew had spent an hour and a half in an Uber trying to get to the stadium when the show was postponed and they just went back to their hotel. I told her they were the lucky ones. I also saw on Twitter that people were literally walking out of their Ubers and walking down the interstate because the Nissan Stadium situation was so bad. Our Uber from Demonbreun and 2nd to Midtown was $70, so I can’t imagine what some of y’all who hopped in a car right after the show was canceled paid. People were running up to cabs in the street just to try and get a ride. People were honking their horns like crazy. Some old man asked me to show him my titties, and I told him I couldn’t because my fiancé was with me, and she gets mad when I show people my titties. It was a complete and utter disaster – the absolute worst case scenario.
By the time it was all said and done, it was five hours of standing on our feet, soaking wet with sweat, and walking in wet shoes, soaking wet from the rain. Between Big Delta, pneumonia, and stepping in puddles of garbage water downtown, I’m banking on becoming either a corpse or a mutant by mid-week. I just couldn’t believe how horribly things could possibly go. I’m laughing about it now because it was just so absurd that it didn’t feel real at times. But, in the moment, I was fuming.
I’m not sharing this story to place blame on anyone. Some of y’all on social media are blaming Garth for this, as if he was in control of the weather, and as if he was the one that approved Nissan Stadium’s emergency protocol. And, besides – how the fuck can y’all be mad at someone for NOT WANTING TO TAKE THE STAGE DURING A LIGHTNING STORM?!?! And, it’s damn sure not Garth’s fault that Uber and Lyft were acting spastic. I don’t get the hate. I don’t know who’s fucking fault it is, and I don’t care. This is the risk that we all chose to take on when we got tickets. It’s the risk we all take on ANY TIME we buy tickets to live events. Anything can happen. In a way, now that my knees and feet have stopped swelling (my fiancé still has blisters on her feet), I’m kind of thankful for the event in a weird way. I’ll be able to tell this tale for the rest of my days, and I look forward to it.
It’s just a wild and crazy story, plain and simple. And, I’m a fucking moron. That’s it – end of story.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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