"From Vegas To Nashville" | Welcome to the Sandbar

Our Summer Trip Around the Sun with Kenny Chesney & The No Shoes Nation

Wow! What an amazing summer we had with Kenny and our No Shoes Nation family. After being blessed to be able to help with the rescue of the pups from the Virgin Islands, the tour started for us in Las Vegas and ended in Nashville for our Trip Around the Sun Tour fun! Connie attending 8 shows this tour and Michelle attending 6. It was an amazing year of friends, helping Love For Love City, music and Kenny! We met so many of you on this tour and we will always remember this tour as the one that celebrated the special bond we have with the No Shoes Nation. As we go back and look at the fun times we had in each city, it is hard not to dream about the next tour and when we can do it all again!

First up was Las Vegas and we can’t forget the preparty by the rehab pool and the cold breezes that made our day cooler than normal for these Florida girls! We met so many of our newest friends and reunited with many of our longtime Sandbar family. We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in style and then partied with Kenny that night at the Joint. He was on fire and you could tell he had missed performing for the No Shoes Nation. We got a big surprise when Kenny covered the song “Carried Away” by George Straight! For night two in Vegas we were up-close in the Sandbar and helped Tiffany get her homemade giant birthday card to Kenny. It had to have had 100 messages on it wishing our guy the best Birthday ever. He was taken back and humbly accepted it with a huge smile! Vegas is our all-time favorite place to see Kenny in concert. The venue is small and the sandbar just seems special there. Everyone is so nice and just wants to have a good time!

Next was the official tour opener in Tampa. Tampa is only an hour and 45 minutes from our home base, so this has become our hometown show. So much happened in Tampa that we would be here all day telling you about it… what can we say… Epic Weekend! From VIP’ing it for the preparty with our Blue Chair Bay family the night before the show to Kenny surprising the No Shoes Nation and filming his newest music video 100 feet from our tailgate before the show. Then, a month later seeing ourselves in the “Get Along” video was just icing on the cake! We were so proud that we raised $1,600.00 for Love For Love City at the tailgate too. Oh, and then our local radio station surprising us with a meet and greet with Kenny. Then the fact that Kenny was excited to see us was just too much. Kenny’s performance at Raymond James was incredible. We got to hear him sing “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” for the first time live and we were surprised by the video screen behind Kenny that had footage of the Love For Love City team and their rescue efforts with the pups! That was a very emotional moment.

On to Charlotte, North Carolina for Connie. She met up with long time Sandbar Girls Jennifer and Lisa for a fun but hot day tailgating. The first amphitheatre for us on this tour – we just love shed shows! It was amazing to walk into the sandbar and finding so many sandbar followers to enjoy the show with. The sandbar was so small and it made for an intimate show with Kenny! He was sweating through his shirt before the 2nd song was over. The sweaty handshakes were amazing. There was the moment Kenny even held her hand and said thank you… it was so special. He was so full of energy. Connie still says that was a top 5 show for her. So many special moments with Kenny singing right to her and the crew at the stage! Oh… and it is pretty amazing having Kenny sweat on you!

We then traveled to Dallas, Texas for the show in Arlington. We have been to this show before and the Lot 12 crew always makes us feel welcome. We stopped by their huge tailgate and found our girl Natalie raising money like we did in Tampa for Love For Love City, it made our hearts happy to see others in the No Shoes Nation take on the challenge of helping with the relief efforts in Kenny’s honor. We had our scheduled meet-n-greet with Kenny without too much fan fair. Since we had won this one via a St. Jude fundraiser back in November, we had no idea about the Tampa one at that time, so we decided to make it quick. We got our hugs and thanked Kenny for the music. He was happy to see us and that certainly made us feel good! Sometimes it’s fun to be in the back of the sandbar and take it all in. The energy, the love of the music, just absorbing it all. That was one of those times in Arlington, to really appreciate Kenny and the show.

Back to Florida and West Palm Beach. This was the first place that Michelle and Connie saw Kenny in concert together, back in 2011 for the Going Coastal tour. So a special venue for sure. We did a small preparty raffle sponsored by our friends at Blue Chair Bay who donated an autographed guitar. We raised $570.00 for Love For Love City. Another time we were so proud of our No Shoes Nation family. We had a mission for this show which was to give Kenny the original “Get Along” plate that we had made and was in the “Get Along” video. Mission accomplished! He took the plate and thanked us. He even blew us a kiss. Another Amphitheatre with a small sandbar… we were even able to go for beer and bathroom runs most of the night. We were surprised when Deanna Kay from No Shoes Radio came and joined us for the first few songs. Even surprising Kenny when he looked out to see her singing along with us! Can’t say enough how we love the intimate feel of the amphitheaters. It really felt like we knew everyone in the sandbar and we met some new friends just like we always do! Hanging with our Florida sandbar girls Kim and Sandy is always special!

Connie arranged a business trip to attend the Columbus, Ohio show with Sandbar Girls Jennifer and Lisa. The day started out with a fun tailgate with so many friends stopping by. Unfortunately rain and thunderstorms set in so there was a delay getting into the venue. Waiting it out with Lisa, Connie was able to finally get into the venue and right up to the stage to meet Jennifer. Some shows are just different and for this one Connie was taken back when Kenny came right over to their end of the stage and sang so much of the night. A few hand slaps later and his infamous look into her eyes, it was clear Kenny was having fun out on that stage. Despite her first rain delayed show in her over 55 shows, it was an amazing night with some one-on-one with Kenny. One big highlight was hearing so many sing every word to every song.

Our last show of the year was Nashville. It is one of our favorite cities to see Kenny in and our second time seeing him at Nissan stadium. We planned a VIP party for the Brandon Lay pre-party the night before with 35 Sandbar followers. We had so much fun and it really was nice to see how Brandon has grown as an entertainer since we saw in Tampa. The day of the show we held a fun get together in downtown Nashville before the show, to raffle off a NSR autographed hat. We were able to raise $1,650.00 for Love For Love City. The No Shoes Nation came out in full force and we met so many amazing people. We walked to to the stadium with a crew of 20 or so to get in the sandbar line with our Love For Love City plate in hand. This show took the top spot for being the hottest of the summer and best of all for having the most amazing people surround us in the sandbar. We had some of our crew with us from our first sandbar escape and some of our closest Kenny friends, which made it even more special. Shari and Greg even surprised us at the pre-party the night before. We had NO IDEA they were making the trip to Nashville. Connie was so proud to able to give Kenny his new Love For Love City plate to add to his growing collection. It made the show even more special to be able to look around and see so many people that are close to our heart all in one place… our favorite place… the sandbar. We sang every song with everyone all night. We looked at each other at one point and just couldn’t put into words the energy and emotion we felt from Kenny and everyone around us. It was a special time for us and we will never forget that night in Nashville. The amazing energy that Kenny had on stage to the feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else in the world than right there with our No Shoes Nation family… it was overwhelming! You guys are truly what drives us every day to do what we do at Welcome To The Sandbar. Kenny’s music has taken us all to a place that is so special with so many amazing people and for that we are thankful!

We’re all here
‘Cause where else would we go
When the earth tips sideways
It’s just where we’ll roll
Well that crazy train ran out of track
We all jumped off and never looked back
On a buzz, on a binge, on a dare
On a whim, on a wing, on a prayer
Maybe we’re all here, ’cause we ain’t all there

Here is the video recap of our summer! Enjoy!