The Party Boat

Edit: I see a zillion of you coming over here from Carrie's Fan Club website - welcome! Since it's a member-only forum I can't see what was posted to get you here, but I hope it was good. I invite all visitors to post a comment along with their city / state so I can tell where you're visiting from! And apologies that my pictures aren't better. I intentionally make them a little blurry so you can't steal them and sell them. ha! Kidding. Thanks for visiting.


As I've mentioned before, my favorite event of CRS is the Boat Show. This is the 21st year they've done this, and I have no idea which record label actually started it, but due to last year's consolidation, it is now the SonyBMG Boat. Which covers RCA, BNA, Arista, and Columbia. Columbia is the newest label to the label group formerly known as RLG, so several acts made their first appearance on the boat.

So here's how this works. They load up 300 people, invitation only, onto the boat where the alcohol flows as freely as the water around it. During mingle time, the artists come out, trotted around by someone from the label, and introduced to everyone. Then they serve dinner, and there's a show, where each artist does 2 or 3 songs. In between performances, while they're changing the set, they show videos, give plaques, and otherwise cheerlead the labels. The boat cruises from downtown out to the Opry landing, turns around, and comes back. You're captive for about 4 hours.

It was my job to secure seats for XM, Party of 5. So I took the first shuttle down there and wound up being about #16 in line. Scored a primo table - dead center, three rows back. Yay me.

The first artists I saw come wandering out was Van Zant. Double yay for me! I knew how these things work - usually the artists only make it part of the way through the room, there's a lot of germing, phototaking, and you're hurried from one guest to the other. But I hadn't seen these guys in WAY too long, and wanted to get a chance to catch up before they got mobbed. So I went over to them and stood patiently to the side while they finished meeting and greeting. Donnie saw me first and he grabbed Johnny and brought him over. I told Johnny as I hugged him that I'd never hugged a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame before! The great thing is that they are working on a new album - still in the recording stage, but they're still on Columbia and hope to tour again together once it's done.

Since we live in Nashville and get to see the artists all the time, we tried to stay out of the way as they made their rounds and met the local radio folks that they'd never gotten to meet before. Lots of picture taking, you could see the people who were so excited to get to meet the stars, it was kind of cute. I did get to say hello to some of them - including Jake Owen, who told me he hears his song on XM all the time, Terri Clark, Jason Michael Carroll - who said Driver's Ed was a big part of the success his CD had first week, and Eddie and Troy, both of whom kissed me on the cheek.

Not all of the artists on the boat were performing, but they came out to "greet and grope" as I like to call it. Terri Clark, who had performed at the lunch that day, and Jake, Catherine Owen, and Cole Deggs were all there - the last 3 performed earlier in the week at a club. (I have pictures of them too, that I'll eventually get up.) Miranda was there in a really cool dress - she didn't perform because she was on the New Faces show the next night. The only 2 artists I didn't see doing the meet & greet were Brad Paisley and Ronnie Dunn - but they might have done the upper level and I just didn't see them.

Dinner was good, although the dessert was even better, even though 3/4 of everything they brought out on the enormous dessert platter was chocolate.

Ed Morris has a great recap of the show at CMT.com. In fact, CMT definitely has the best coverage of CRS events that I've found. Usually at this event, there's always a surprise guest. And usually, it's someone that is working with the label on a special project. In recent years they've had Jimmy Buffett, ZZ Top, and Ronnie Milsap. Given that I knew she was at the label for a meeting with the label head earlier in the week, and that "Jolene" was playing in the pre-show music, I spread the rumor that the special guest might be Dolly herself.

I was wrong. In fact, there was no special guest.

A few fashion tidbits. Sara Evans and Martina McBride both had incredibly short dresses on for as cold as it was. I suggested that one of them had the legs to carry that hemline off and one didn't, but Jon Anthony tells me I'm wrong. Look at me, wrong twice in one night! Carrie Underwood had the hair extensions in, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. When she came out for the finale she had a long black trenchcoat on. Eddie Montgomery had a very strange skull themed duster on that scared me a little. Troy looked good. (I know, you're shocked. )

I really enjoyed the Pat Green / Sara Evans duet. Pat is awesome in concert if you've never seen him, he's so funny. Carrie, who maybe heard the rumor I was spreading, did a verse and chorus of Jolene with no explanation or comments about Dolly before launching into "Before He Cheats." Carrie showed off her wrist accessories... grey seasickness bracelets. Apparently, she got pretty sick on the boat last year. Brad Paisley debuted his new single, which has the hook "I'd like to check you for ticks." Apparently, I'm not quite redneck enough to fully get that joke. During Brad's performance they handed out cigars to the crowd. He did not explain where Huckleberry came from, but he was introduced as Huckleberry's dad. Not Will's dad. Huckleberry's dad.

Also, I've ready some (slightly mean) speculation about the order that the performers went in. Remember, this show has a captive audience, there's no need to put an opening act while everyone wanders in off the street. They mix it all up putting newbies in between vets, girls between boys, and not clumping everyone from one label together. It probably has as much to do with stage logistics as anything. This year Brooks & Dunn went last, but last year they were one of the first - if not the first. So don't read too much into the order of events.

In keeping with my confessions of wrongness... last year on the boat Jon and I agreed that there was one new artist they debuted who tanked and would never be heard from again, and another who was awesome and we were going to be able to say "we say ___ before they were anyone."

Umm...yeah. So one of those artists were on the boat this year, the other was nowhere to be found. However, it was the opposite of ways I predicted it. I didn't make any such predictions this year.

One of the things they showed between performances was Kellie Pickler on American Idol. There was a buzz zipping through the room about her hair. Not a particularly favorable buzz. There was a very dramatic story told about someone TiVo'ing the show, taking it to the Opryland landing, getting on a speedboat and catching up to the General Jackson, and someone leaning overboard to get the handoff of the DVD to be able to show to the crowd.

The finale of the show had just about everyone (except, for some reason, Eddie and Troy) doing "Sweet Home Alabama." B&D, Johnny, Donnie, Gretchen, and Pat Green were leading the pack, the other girls all singing backup, Brad Paisley just playing guitar in the background. Absolute funniest moment came at the end when they took a big bow, and Johnny Van Zant grabbed Carrie Underwood's hand. This look of "oh my God what just touched me" crossed her face. Cracked everyone up... definitely a collision of worlds there.

When you get off the boat you had your choice of shuttles to take you to Bon Jovi, Keith Urban, Big & Rich, or back to a hotel. It was walking up the plank past the shuttle people holding signs for their respective shows that we heard another artist say quite loudly, disgustedly, and judgementally - "oh yeah...Keith Urban is cool. He's on crack."

My first stop was Bon Jovi, my second Keith Urban. Reports on both later.