Mom and I just attended our final show for 2022 after a difficult few weeks of her dealing with a cancer removal surgery just a couple weeks after we saw Kenny. We had a later start to head to the show due to an appointment she needed to get done and a couple quick local errands, but since the doors didn’t open ’til 6 pm and the music didn’t begin until 7:30 pm we made it with time to spare despite a freight train slowing us down. We encountered another train about 1:30 am as we rolled back in, got in at 2 am so I still need to sleep better tonight (dang it Taylor Swift stop making me stay up late) and go through videos.
We arrived at the Denny Center lot about 6, to find a football game in progress and a little parking lot parade in short chaotic. We still found a good parking spot pretty quickly. I logged our phones into Ticketmaster before we exited the car to enter the door. I mentioned to security that my camera is fixed lens so they okayed me having it, but wow did it get some nice shots from clear across the room! Oh and we took the elevator, the ticket scanning person was sitting right in the elevator door huh that’s different.
Martina took the stage at 7:30, we saw her long ago when her 1st daughter was still a baby and I think she had some spit up on her that time. She still looks & sounds good as ever! She covered Loretta’s “Woman enough”. As we settled into our 2nd row back of arena seats I happened to notice a small stage in the back of the floor in the sound booth area, and I saw them move someone in a box from the secured backstage area below us into that stage. Turns out that was WYNONNA herself, blew me away being that close the first 2 songs ahhhhhhh omg! Looking back through my content I now realize the start of Wynonna’s set involved a lift malfunction so I’ve uploaded only that video for now, unedited. Good to know she’s ok. Despite that the rest of the show was great!
She walked a floor aisle & shook hands, I wonder what Naomi would’ve done. There were moments she paused, could tell it wasn’t easy for her to perform this show without her mama Naomi. She asked if this was real. She said she wasn’t the strongest, but was the most determined. I teared up a few times, especially on “Grandpa, tell me about the good old days” since my grandparents are all gone now. Of course Wy threw in “No one else on earth” so after hearing it on radio etc all these years with the other classics, wow! Was our first time seeing Wynonna and we were looking forward to Naomi as well, was worried it would be called off when she died earlier this year.
Martina & Ashley McBryde joined her off & on through the night, and they all sang “Coal Miner’s Daughter” to honor Loretta. Couldn’t find the merch until we were finding our way out to the car and the line was long so I sent Mom the link to the Judds online official store so I’ll let her surprise me.
I turn 40 next Sunday and just grateful to still have my Mom. What a way to end my 30’s! It’s been quite an eventful summer so I might edit together the best of the videos.