I didn't know that one day someone so special would come along to steal my heart. ♥
So it occurred to me that I will probably never do a complete write-up of everything that happened on the Knoxville trip. I mean, we haven't even done recaps of the shows, and it's been over a month. But I did write up the part about meeting Alison first thing, and it's just been sitting in a document on my computer for about a month. So I'm going to post because I just went and read it again and it made me all flaily.
We got to the theater around 3pm (or 4pm?) because we took a little extra time finishing the gift box (which we forgot to even decorate the outside until Mindy reminded Africa and I when we were almost at the theater, and I placed the flowers on the outside of the box and even used Misty’s knife in a moving car without cutting myself…pretty proud, not gonna lie) and we waited outside for a little while. We saw pretty much all of the band members, except Alison (her bus wasn't there yet) and talked to two guys also waiting outside but they just wanted autographs from the band. One of the guys had pretty much every CD of Alison's.
Alison's bus pulled up and not too long later, there were a few people going on and just hanging around by her bus. I was kind of tucked in some sort inlet thingy on the street, so I didn't see her actually get off the bus, but I moved and I saw her walk across the street and into the theater, and holy crap. I will never forget that little glimpse of her I caught because there was something about her. She had on black sweat pants, a gray sweatshirt and her hair was a mess and it was tied back and draped over her left shoulder. And there was legit a circle of people around her as she walked in. This is going to sound so creepy, but god, the way she walked. I wish I could describe it better but she walked like a fucking boss. Like she did not give any fucks ever. Head kind of up, arms swinging and god I wish I could describe it better but it was the most amazing thing. She has some fucking swag. That night in the hotel room, Mindy and I were talking about it and I said, “Watching her walk by today, she just had so much fucking swag. Like she gave no fucks ever. Not going to lie, I was a little turned on." BECAUSE I CAN'T HELP IT, IT WAS RIDICULOUSLY HOT TO SEE HER LIKE THAT.
We had time to kill until showtime, so we wandered around Gay Street, and went to this little French shop and just looked at things and talked. Stopped in a music shop for Africa, went further down the street to find Misty and just kind of chilled on the benches for a few minutes. Africa forgot her guitar tuner in the music shop, so she had to go back and get it and I texted Maci, Mindy’s sister, from her phone because she was mad at Mindy for getting to meet Alison again lol. Africa stopped and got a sandwich right next to the theater but Mindy and I chose not to eat. I think we sat down in the theater around 7:30 or 7:45 and we were so close! We were on Ron's side (aka, Alison's fiddle face side - the direction she stares off into space in when she is doing some srs business fiddling).
So after the final song, I couldn’t even be sad like I normally am when concerts draw to an end. We tried to rush out the one exit door and it just wasn’t working, so the three of us joined hands and I tried to weave through people (my skills are lacking lately; I blame the fact that I haven’t been to Disneyland in a while). I think I was in a daze at this point, because I was about to meet Alison Krauss. I brushed my hair and tried to dab the oils off my face real quick, and then Ron walked by. He’d walked by us like three times during the day and Africa didn’t say anything to him and I knew she really wanted to meet him, so when he said “hi” to us, I said something like, “Hi! I think you know Africa,” and he was like, “Oh, Africa!” and was excited to meet her. Sean came and got us and walked us into this little room where Alison was waiting alone, and I didn’t realize this but Ron actually followed us into the room and stood off to the side to wait for Africa. Dying. ♥ Sean took my camera as we walked in so he could take a picture of us.
And then we saw her. She was right there in the middle of this room, waiting for us and smiling and happy. We walked in single file and lined up in front of her. From her left, it was Mindy, then Africa, then me, with Sean and Ron near the wall on my left. She started with Mindy first, which was a good thing because I don’t think I would have been able to say anything because she is so beautiful. She was taller than I thought she would be, and there was not a single fucking flaw on that woman’s face. I’m not kidding. Absolutely flawless. She mentioned how she remembered Mindy from Atlanta and that it was nice to see her again! She then moved to Africa, shook her hand, and was like, “Hi, I’m Alison.” As if we didn’t know who she was. I remember that and I remember thinking, “Did she really just say that?” so then she gets to me, and sticks out her hand and I take it, and before she even has a chance to speak, I accidentally blurt out, “Oh my god, you’re really pretty.” Smooth, Allie. Really smooth. One of my many open mouth, insert foot comments that night. She just kind of tilted her head back and laughed and thanked me. She didn’t let go of my hand, which was really weird because I had her hand longer than Mindy and Africa. She eventually let go, though. There was no way I was going to be the one to break contact, which, in retrospect, is probably a little creepy but whatever.
You guys. The first thing she started talking about was her screw-up(s?). She majorly messed up the words to Let Me Touch You For Awhile and I’m not sure what she said, but she definitely was being a bit self-deprecating to us about it. Like, who does that? You meet three huge fans and before talking about anything else, you talk about how you fucked up. Alison, I love you a lot. You’re pretty amazing. Then Mindy mentioned Dan’s screw ups during Daylight and how he got it right and I was like, “We were pulling for him!” and she kind of widened her eyes like, “What?” and then she was like, “No that was me, I thought!” or something, and she tried to take the blame for his mistakes even though obviously she was perfect and we knew it was him. It was kind of adorable how openly she talked about her mistakes, considering how much of a perfectionist she is.
She wanted to know about us more because she was interested in the fact that we basically came from all ends of the US and I told her that I flew to Atlanta and drove with Mindy through the mountains to get here and we all took turns telling her where we’re from and how we got here. I’m told that we made Alison’s jaw drop, actually. Mindy told her kind of how it came about, that we all met online talking about her and she accidentally mentioned that we created a fansite, and then just planned this and ended up here together, and she seemed really touched.
We also mentioned that we got her flowers in our respective cities and I think one of us mentioned how we basically overloaded her with flowers and her eyes got all wide and was like, “That’s good, because I love flowers!” and she remembered Mindy’s in Atlanta, and then Africa was all, “You weren’t feeling well but they got to you in Detroit,” and Alison put her head down for a second and was like, “Detroit, hmm, where was that?” and she turned to Sean and was like, “The Fox?” and he said it was. And then I told her I brought her flowers in LA, and she was all, “The Greek?” and I clasped my hands together and was like, “Yes!” and she was all, “You came down from the right side of the stage!” and used her hand to kind of gesture. Indeed I did! She couldn’t remember the theater she played in two weeks ago but she can remember the theater AND WHAT SIDE OF THE STAGE I CAME FROM three months ago. What even, Alison. But I still kind of die over the fact that she remembered me. I can’t. ♥ ♥ ♥
I think Sean grabbed my camera from me at about this time and we lined up to take a picture. She pulled Mindy into her one side and then I went to her other side, with Africa standing next to Mindy. This was probably really creepy but I don’t care. When she had her arm around me and we were lined up waiting for a picture, I turned to look at her, and god, being just inches away from her face and seeing her so close, she’s absolutely beautiful. I remember Sean having a slight issue with my camera, we took one picture and then I said something about a flash and he said it’s okay, he’s got it, and then he turned off a light in the room to take the second picture. I literally had no idea what was going on with that until just today. I had my camera on a different setting for concert pictures because I was having trouble, so I guess when we were in normal lighting, it made it really bright or something. So he turned the light off, and Ron joined us for the next picture, he stood next to Africa.
I want to say she hugged us around this time, and holy shit. I cannot believe we hugged Alison. I NEVER see her hug anyone, and have never heard of her hugging fans before. She didn’t hug Mindy the first time Mindy met her, but she hugged us. I honestly don’t remember feeling her, or trying to process the fact that I was touching her, it was just a normal hug. Except I hugged her tight and I had the biggest grin on my face and I just…asdjfkhsd. I could have died happy. I hugged Alison Krauss. She had her arms around me.
Sean handed me back my camera and I did some quick thinking and as I put the camera back in my bag, hit the quick record button to record audio of this next part and good god, am I glad I did. There’s a lot of it we can’t understand, but that’s okay because I have audio of us meeting Alison Krauss.
Then we finally remembered the gift box, because it was in Mindy’s hand and she started telling Alison about it because somehow we had all forgotten it at this point. Alison opened it and the stress ball was in there along with the letter, so Mindy goes, “We got you a stress ball,” and I swear to God, without missing a beat, she goes, “Why, ladies?” in a humorous/sarcastic tone because she knew exactly why we got it for her and was kind of making fun of herself and it was adorable. And then she laughed her adorable little laugh. Mindy was all, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you tend to fidget onstage when you don’t have your fiddle and I’m always afraid you’re going to grab someone else’s instrument,” or something like that. Alison thought it was so funny lol. You guys, she has the best sense of humor ever. And then I mentioned there was a letter in there too and as she was looking at it she’s all, “Look how sweet that is!” and she seemed genuinely thankful. The outside of the box looks prettier than the inside and so when she opened it and started reading the fan messages, I was like, “We’re not very artistically inclined,” and we all kind of started talking over each other about the box and basically how we suck at making it look pretty, even though we tried lol. Misty painted the outside and I did some cool flower stickers that I liked, but on the inside it wasn’t as nice and as we were talking about this, she’s all, “Come on, COME ONNNNNNNNNN!” and it was cute. I LOVE HER.
It was kind of dark in there still and Alison kept bending over and had her face really close to the box trying to read the messages (I believe this was about the time Africa turned to Ron and started a conversation with him, and in the audio you can’t make out anything because there’s like five of us talking at once) and at one point I realized I was blocking her light, so I told her I was blocking her light then proceeded to move, lol. Mindy explained that we collected messages from people all over the country. She kept trying to read the notes and Sean would shine is flashlight on it for her, but she had trouble because it was too dark in the room, I think, because no one turned a light back on. I think Africa tried, but the light never went on, so we gave up and it just stayed dark. She kept thanking us and said how thoughtful it was.
We started explaining the whole flowers thing because there was seriously a common theme of flowers running here. We explained that we gave her flowers in our cities, and I added in that we sent her flowers for her birthday but none of us were there, and that we kind of have a thing for flowers, lol. She again mentioned that she loves flowers and for some reason I felt compelled to tell her about how I didn’t realize how flower-obsessed I was until this morning when I realized that when I picked through my scrapbooking stuff, I chose some sort of variation of flowers for everything that I bought. She was amused by this.
I think I started apologizing for the flower stickers, and she had the box in her hand and I kind of moved toward her and grabbed it (she didn’t let go, though) and I said something about how the flower stickers kind of need to be pushed down every once in a while and I started showing her (we were both holding onto the box at this point, hands kind of touching) and I was pushing stickers down and she was watching me and started doing it too. I basically have no concept of boundaries so my hands were all over hers, and I blurted out, “Your hands are warmer than they were in LA!” and she looked at me kind of confused, and she goes, “…my hands are warmer…?” and then I heard Mindy in the background say something about how I felt her hands in LA when I gave her flowers and I remembered that they were freezing. Alison pulled one of her hands away and was, like, rubbing her thumb against her other fingers, I’m assuming to kind of feel her own hands, and was like, “Oh yeah my hands are always cold!” and she said something about how they’re not now because she just got done playing, and then she put her hands somewhere on mine to show me that they weren’t cold. I said that I always have cold hands, too, and then I apparently felt the need to show her because she showed me, and put my fingers on top of her hand/wrist areaand she was like, “Ooooh, yeah, you do!” Every time I think of that little exchange I get all askdjhfsd because I was just like, “Oh, I’m just gonna put my hands on Alison Krauss, nbd,” and I think I did it mostly because she did it to me first but WHERE DID I GET SO COMFORTABLE LIKE THIS. What even, Allie. This is probably not a good thing.
I’m not sure how but we told her we (Mindy and I) would be back tomorrow, and that we’ll be the ones with the glow bracelets (we each had one on our wrist this night, but she didn’t notice) and was all, “Wave them up!” and she’d look for us. I think I said something about how we tried to tonight but I guess she didn’t see us.
It was definitely time to go at this point, Sean said something again (the first time he said something about leaving, I was in the middle of talking to Alison and I literally stopped mid-sentence and started saying goodbye and walking out and Alison just looked at me like “wtf?” and so confused…she did say, “What?” so I finished my sentence…which lead to us staying even longer) and so Alison started shaking our hands again and she told Mindy it was nice to see her again, and thanked us for coming out, and I believe when she got to me, I was like, “OmgcanIhugyouagain?” and she just laughed and pulled me into a hug. I never heard this until later (and now on the audio) but she said, “You guys are my speed. I’d ride in a car with ya,” as she hugged me. DYING. DEAD. I think that’s possibly my favorite thing she’s ever said and SHE SAID IT WHILE SHE WAS HUGGING ME. She wants to hang out with us, basically. Because we rock. And because we’re girls. Alison, I’d ride in car with you, too. And also, what even. I get the, “you’re my speed,” thing, basically saying we’re like her, but then she adds a car reference, lol. What even, woman. This is the sense of humor that I love and I’m glad I got to see it in person.
So we said goodbye, and she thanked us for coming and I follow the stage manager out and I’m continuously thanking him and I think I was almost near tears…then we see Dan standing in the hall on the way out. And I just had to something. I had to. So as we’re walking by him in the hall, I blurt out (slightly embarrassed by this now), “I’m sorry for interrupting your birthday moment in LA,” and he gets this “wtf?” look/grin on his face and he’s all, “You’re fine,” and Mindy and Africa burst out laughing and I was all, “I’M SORRY, I HAD TO SAY SOMETHING!” and I didn’t see his reaction after that because we never stopped walking, but god. I am a fucking weirdo. I’m really kind of embarrassed by this, not gonna lie.
We get outside the stage door and close it behind us and we just screamed. I have this on audio and it’s quite possibly one of my favorite things ever. We just screamed and squealed and jumped around because we just fucking met Alison Krauss. And we walked and I was in such a daze and I didn’t even know where we were going nor did I care, but I remember stopping outside this little restaurant on Gay St and they had music on and Straight Up came on and I just…I kind of just wanted to die in that moment. I just met Alison Krauss, I’m in freaking Tennessee with Mindy and Africa and we’re all together and I just…askdjfhaskdf. There's another song that was playing right then and we never knew what song it was, but Mindy and I had heard it before but we found the song later when we all got back home, and it reminds us of meeting Alison and this night. ♥ Even just talking about it right now gives me chills. That is a moment I’ll never forget. I’m pretty sure we talked (read: yelled) loudly about how we met Alison Krauss and gave zero fucks who heard us. It was amazing.
This is one of those nights that I'll never forget as long as I live. Alison, thank you for being so fucking amazing to us and just amazing in general. I can't even.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
We got to the theater around 3pm (or 4pm?) because we took a little extra time finishing the gift box (which we forgot to even decorate the outside until Mindy reminded Africa and I when we were almost at the theater, and I placed the flowers on the outside of the box and even used Misty’s knife in a moving car without cutting myself…pretty proud, not gonna lie) and we waited outside for a little while. We saw pretty much all of the band members, except Alison (her bus wasn't there yet) and talked to two guys also waiting outside but they just wanted autographs from the band. One of the guys had pretty much every CD of Alison's.
Alison's bus pulled up and not too long later, there were a few people going on and just hanging around by her bus. I was kind of tucked in some sort inlet thingy on the street, so I didn't see her actually get off the bus, but I moved and I saw her walk across the street and into the theater, and holy crap. I will never forget that little glimpse of her I caught because there was something about her. She had on black sweat pants, a gray sweatshirt and her hair was a mess and it was tied back and draped over her left shoulder. And there was legit a circle of people around her as she walked in. This is going to sound so creepy, but god, the way she walked. I wish I could describe it better but she walked like a fucking boss. Like she did not give any fucks ever. Head kind of up, arms swinging and god I wish I could describe it better but it was the most amazing thing. She has some fucking swag. That night in the hotel room, Mindy and I were talking about it and I said, “Watching her walk by today, she just had so much fucking swag. Like she gave no fucks ever. Not going to lie, I was a little turned on." BECAUSE I CAN'T HELP IT, IT WAS RIDICULOUSLY HOT TO SEE HER LIKE THAT.
We had time to kill until showtime, so we wandered around Gay Street, and went to this little French shop and just looked at things and talked. Stopped in a music shop for Africa, went further down the street to find Misty and just kind of chilled on the benches for a few minutes. Africa forgot her guitar tuner in the music shop, so she had to go back and get it and I texted Maci, Mindy’s sister, from her phone because she was mad at Mindy for getting to meet Alison again lol. Africa stopped and got a sandwich right next to the theater but Mindy and I chose not to eat. I think we sat down in the theater around 7:30 or 7:45 and we were so close! We were on Ron's side (aka, Alison's fiddle face side - the direction she stares off into space in when she is doing some srs business fiddling).
So after the final song, I couldn’t even be sad like I normally am when concerts draw to an end. We tried to rush out the one exit door and it just wasn’t working, so the three of us joined hands and I tried to weave through people (my skills are lacking lately; I blame the fact that I haven’t been to Disneyland in a while). I think I was in a daze at this point, because I was about to meet Alison Krauss. I brushed my hair and tried to dab the oils off my face real quick, and then Ron walked by. He’d walked by us like three times during the day and Africa didn’t say anything to him and I knew she really wanted to meet him, so when he said “hi” to us, I said something like, “Hi! I think you know Africa,” and he was like, “Oh, Africa!” and was excited to meet her. Sean came and got us and walked us into this little room where Alison was waiting alone, and I didn’t realize this but Ron actually followed us into the room and stood off to the side to wait for Africa. Dying. ♥ Sean took my camera as we walked in so he could take a picture of us.
And then we saw her. She was right there in the middle of this room, waiting for us and smiling and happy. We walked in single file and lined up in front of her. From her left, it was Mindy, then Africa, then me, with Sean and Ron near the wall on my left. She started with Mindy first, which was a good thing because I don’t think I would have been able to say anything because she is so beautiful. She was taller than I thought she would be, and there was not a single fucking flaw on that woman’s face. I’m not kidding. Absolutely flawless. She mentioned how she remembered Mindy from Atlanta and that it was nice to see her again! She then moved to Africa, shook her hand, and was like, “Hi, I’m Alison.” As if we didn’t know who she was. I remember that and I remember thinking, “Did she really just say that?” so then she gets to me, and sticks out her hand and I take it, and before she even has a chance to speak, I accidentally blurt out, “Oh my god, you’re really pretty.” Smooth, Allie. Really smooth. One of my many open mouth, insert foot comments that night. She just kind of tilted her head back and laughed and thanked me. She didn’t let go of my hand, which was really weird because I had her hand longer than Mindy and Africa. She eventually let go, though. There was no way I was going to be the one to break contact, which, in retrospect, is probably a little creepy but whatever.
You guys. The first thing she started talking about was her screw-up(s?). She majorly messed up the words to Let Me Touch You For Awhile and I’m not sure what she said, but she definitely was being a bit self-deprecating to us about it. Like, who does that? You meet three huge fans and before talking about anything else, you talk about how you fucked up. Alison, I love you a lot. You’re pretty amazing. Then Mindy mentioned Dan’s screw ups during Daylight and how he got it right and I was like, “We were pulling for him!” and she kind of widened her eyes like, “What?” and then she was like, “No that was me, I thought!” or something, and she tried to take the blame for his mistakes even though obviously she was perfect and we knew it was him. It was kind of adorable how openly she talked about her mistakes, considering how much of a perfectionist she is.
She wanted to know about us more because she was interested in the fact that we basically came from all ends of the US and I told her that I flew to Atlanta and drove with Mindy through the mountains to get here and we all took turns telling her where we’re from and how we got here. I’m told that we made Alison’s jaw drop, actually. Mindy told her kind of how it came about, that we all met online talking about her and she accidentally mentioned that we created a fansite, and then just planned this and ended up here together, and she seemed really touched.
We also mentioned that we got her flowers in our respective cities and I think one of us mentioned how we basically overloaded her with flowers and her eyes got all wide and was like, “That’s good, because I love flowers!” and she remembered Mindy’s in Atlanta, and then Africa was all, “You weren’t feeling well but they got to you in Detroit,” and Alison put her head down for a second and was like, “Detroit, hmm, where was that?” and she turned to Sean and was like, “The Fox?” and he said it was. And then I told her I brought her flowers in LA, and she was all, “The Greek?” and I clasped my hands together and was like, “Yes!” and she was all, “You came down from the right side of the stage!” and used her hand to kind of gesture. Indeed I did! She couldn’t remember the theater she played in two weeks ago but she can remember the theater AND WHAT SIDE OF THE STAGE I CAME FROM three months ago. What even, Alison. But I still kind of die over the fact that she remembered me. I can’t. ♥ ♥ ♥
I think Sean grabbed my camera from me at about this time and we lined up to take a picture. She pulled Mindy into her one side and then I went to her other side, with Africa standing next to Mindy. This was probably really creepy but I don’t care. When she had her arm around me and we were lined up waiting for a picture, I turned to look at her, and god, being just inches away from her face and seeing her so close, she’s absolutely beautiful. I remember Sean having a slight issue with my camera, we took one picture and then I said something about a flash and he said it’s okay, he’s got it, and then he turned off a light in the room to take the second picture. I literally had no idea what was going on with that until just today. I had my camera on a different setting for concert pictures because I was having trouble, so I guess when we were in normal lighting, it made it really bright or something. So he turned the light off, and Ron joined us for the next picture, he stood next to Africa.
I want to say she hugged us around this time, and holy shit. I cannot believe we hugged Alison. I NEVER see her hug anyone, and have never heard of her hugging fans before. She didn’t hug Mindy the first time Mindy met her, but she hugged us. I honestly don’t remember feeling her, or trying to process the fact that I was touching her, it was just a normal hug. Except I hugged her tight and I had the biggest grin on my face and I just…asdjfkhsd. I could have died happy. I hugged Alison Krauss. She had her arms around me.
Sean handed me back my camera and I did some quick thinking and as I put the camera back in my bag, hit the quick record button to record audio of this next part and good god, am I glad I did. There’s a lot of it we can’t understand, but that’s okay because I have audio of us meeting Alison Krauss.
Then we finally remembered the gift box, because it was in Mindy’s hand and she started telling Alison about it because somehow we had all forgotten it at this point. Alison opened it and the stress ball was in there along with the letter, so Mindy goes, “We got you a stress ball,” and I swear to God, without missing a beat, she goes, “Why, ladies?” in a humorous/sarcastic tone because she knew exactly why we got it for her and was kind of making fun of herself and it was adorable. And then she laughed her adorable little laugh. Mindy was all, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you tend to fidget onstage when you don’t have your fiddle and I’m always afraid you’re going to grab someone else’s instrument,” or something like that. Alison thought it was so funny lol. You guys, she has the best sense of humor ever. And then I mentioned there was a letter in there too and as she was looking at it she’s all, “Look how sweet that is!” and she seemed genuinely thankful. The outside of the box looks prettier than the inside and so when she opened it and started reading the fan messages, I was like, “We’re not very artistically inclined,” and we all kind of started talking over each other about the box and basically how we suck at making it look pretty, even though we tried lol. Misty painted the outside and I did some cool flower stickers that I liked, but on the inside it wasn’t as nice and as we were talking about this, she’s all, “Come on, COME ONNNNNNNNNN!” and it was cute. I LOVE HER.
It was kind of dark in there still and Alison kept bending over and had her face really close to the box trying to read the messages (I believe this was about the time Africa turned to Ron and started a conversation with him, and in the audio you can’t make out anything because there’s like five of us talking at once) and at one point I realized I was blocking her light, so I told her I was blocking her light then proceeded to move, lol. Mindy explained that we collected messages from people all over the country. She kept trying to read the notes and Sean would shine is flashlight on it for her, but she had trouble because it was too dark in the room, I think, because no one turned a light back on. I think Africa tried, but the light never went on, so we gave up and it just stayed dark. She kept thanking us and said how thoughtful it was.
We started explaining the whole flowers thing because there was seriously a common theme of flowers running here. We explained that we gave her flowers in our cities, and I added in that we sent her flowers for her birthday but none of us were there, and that we kind of have a thing for flowers, lol. She again mentioned that she loves flowers and for some reason I felt compelled to tell her about how I didn’t realize how flower-obsessed I was until this morning when I realized that when I picked through my scrapbooking stuff, I chose some sort of variation of flowers for everything that I bought. She was amused by this.
I think I started apologizing for the flower stickers, and she had the box in her hand and I kind of moved toward her and grabbed it (she didn’t let go, though) and I said something about how the flower stickers kind of need to be pushed down every once in a while and I started showing her (we were both holding onto the box at this point, hands kind of touching) and I was pushing stickers down and she was watching me and started doing it too. I basically have no concept of boundaries so my hands were all over hers, and I blurted out, “Your hands are warmer than they were in LA!” and she looked at me kind of confused, and she goes, “…my hands are warmer…?” and then I heard Mindy in the background say something about how I felt her hands in LA when I gave her flowers and I remembered that they were freezing. Alison pulled one of her hands away and was, like, rubbing her thumb against her other fingers, I’m assuming to kind of feel her own hands, and was like, “Oh yeah my hands are always cold!” and she said something about how they’re not now because she just got done playing, and then she put her hands somewhere on mine to show me that they weren’t cold. I said that I always have cold hands, too, and then I apparently felt the need to show her because she showed me, and put my fingers on top of her hand/wrist areaand she was like, “Ooooh, yeah, you do!” Every time I think of that little exchange I get all askdjhfsd because I was just like, “Oh, I’m just gonna put my hands on Alison Krauss, nbd,” and I think I did it mostly because she did it to me first but WHERE DID I GET SO COMFORTABLE LIKE THIS. What even, Allie. This is probably not a good thing.
I’m not sure how but we told her we (Mindy and I) would be back tomorrow, and that we’ll be the ones with the glow bracelets (we each had one on our wrist this night, but she didn’t notice) and was all, “Wave them up!” and she’d look for us. I think I said something about how we tried to tonight but I guess she didn’t see us.
It was definitely time to go at this point, Sean said something again (the first time he said something about leaving, I was in the middle of talking to Alison and I literally stopped mid-sentence and started saying goodbye and walking out and Alison just looked at me like “wtf?” and so confused…she did say, “What?” so I finished my sentence…which lead to us staying even longer) and so Alison started shaking our hands again and she told Mindy it was nice to see her again, and thanked us for coming out, and I believe when she got to me, I was like, “OmgcanIhugyouagain?” and she just laughed and pulled me into a hug. I never heard this until later (and now on the audio) but she said, “You guys are my speed. I’d ride in a car with ya,” as she hugged me. DYING. DEAD. I think that’s possibly my favorite thing she’s ever said and SHE SAID IT WHILE SHE WAS HUGGING ME. She wants to hang out with us, basically. Because we rock. And because we’re girls. Alison, I’d ride in car with you, too. And also, what even. I get the, “you’re my speed,” thing, basically saying we’re like her, but then she adds a car reference, lol. What even, woman. This is the sense of humor that I love and I’m glad I got to see it in person.
So we said goodbye, and she thanked us for coming and I follow the stage manager out and I’m continuously thanking him and I think I was almost near tears…then we see Dan standing in the hall on the way out. And I just had to something. I had to. So as we’re walking by him in the hall, I blurt out (slightly embarrassed by this now), “I’m sorry for interrupting your birthday moment in LA,” and he gets this “wtf?” look/grin on his face and he’s all, “You’re fine,” and Mindy and Africa burst out laughing and I was all, “I’M SORRY, I HAD TO SAY SOMETHING!” and I didn’t see his reaction after that because we never stopped walking, but god. I am a fucking weirdo. I’m really kind of embarrassed by this, not gonna lie.
We get outside the stage door and close it behind us and we just screamed. I have this on audio and it’s quite possibly one of my favorite things ever. We just screamed and squealed and jumped around because we just fucking met Alison Krauss. And we walked and I was in such a daze and I didn’t even know where we were going nor did I care, but I remember stopping outside this little restaurant on Gay St and they had music on and Straight Up came on and I just…I kind of just wanted to die in that moment. I just met Alison Krauss, I’m in freaking Tennessee with Mindy and Africa and we’re all together and I just…askdjfhaskdf. There's another song that was playing right then and we never knew what song it was, but Mindy and I had heard it before but we found the song later when we all got back home, and it reminds us of meeting Alison and this night. ♥ Even just talking about it right now gives me chills. That is a moment I’ll never forget. I’m pretty sure we talked (read: yelled) loudly about how we met Alison Krauss and gave zero fucks who heard us. It was amazing.
This is one of those nights that I'll never forget as long as I live. Alison, thank you for being so fucking amazing to us and just amazing in general. I can't even.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥