Riverbend 2010: Darius Rucker and Charlie Daniels Band

This last week I went to two of the concerts at The Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga - Darius Rucker and Charlie Daniels Band. I don't do musical reviews, but will just say if you ever get a chance to see Darius, do it! I really enjoyed his voice and his choice of music, and it made for a very enjoyable family evening. On the last night, Friday, we went to see the Charlie Daniels Band, and it was just the nicest evening! He's not bad for a 70+year old man - especially because he didn't take some of his better known music and destroy it so that it was unrecognizable (ala Willie Nelson). 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' was a big hit that had the HUGE audience singing along, and smoke was coming off of that fiddle. Immediately after Charlie Daniels was the fireworks display, and it took place on the absolutely most beautiful evening where the horrendous heat of the day (90+) had been replaced by a cool and welcomed breeze.

Whether sitting in your chair and talking or watching people walk by, or walking around listening to other musical groups along the way and eating, or playing at the Children's Village, Riverbend is just fun. Rubbing shoulders with humanity of all sorts. Groups of giggling teenagers meeting up. Teenage girls showing off their boyfriends or their clothes (short shorts or skirts with cowboy boots was very popular this year), teenage guys on the prowl (thank goodness, no 'pants on the ground' like last year). Lots of tatoos! Oldsters sitting in their lawn chairs watching them all walk by or enjoying the antics of their kids or grandkids. Different ages, socio-econmic groups, religions, professions, rockers, country folks, jazzers(don't suppose that's a word), all there to just have a good time. And it appeared that they did.

Here are a few (ok, a lot) of photos from the two nights. I had my camera on the wrong setting, so a lot didn't turn out at all, which is always disappointing on a personal level. However, there were certainly enough to remember the week, and I'm sure Garrett and Conner will be having me pull them up many times over the next year.

Leave it to a four year old to want to put his fingers in the dog's nostrils.

I didn't take note of whether this was a wildlife display or taxidermy exhibit.

Notice Conner didn't get as close to the critter as Garrett did.

This is a view of the stage before the concert. I don't have details, but apparently it's a floating stage.

This area is called Ross's Landing; hence, the plaque.

This is one of my favorite parts of coming here...the river and the boats.

Garrett was actually grounded for the day in that he couldn't ride any of the carnival rides, and no kettle corn or ice cream, which were three things that he had waited for all week. And believe me, he deserved to be grounded! But all was not lost as the playground was cool, plus we did take pity on him and gave him a few bites of our ice cream (though not enough to null and void the punishment!).

No, this isn't the same photo as last week, just the same boy doing the same horns!

The evening wouldn't be complete without a nose bleed, and all we had on hand was a napkin left over from my waffle cone and a fem-wipe. They did the job and all was well.

Boys being boys, these boys found some long weed stems to have a sword fight with when we were out walking.

Conner had a fever all day that ibuprofen was keeping under control. However, toward the end of the evening, the fever was back and he had earned the right to be carried again.

The End.