Hello everyone!!! As far as Disney is concerned we have 7 days left until we leave!
But that's not what this post is going to be about. I don't know how many of you remember but Hannah and I got Mumford and Sons tickets a long time ago and that event was this weekend. If you don't want to read a wall of text then you can just assume we had a fantastic time, because we did.
For those of you who want a full trip report continue reading.
Friday night:
Bands started preforming at 5pm this night but unfortunately Hannah was not able to get here until about 7pm. After giving her some time to rest up and get ready we headed out of the house around 7:45pm. We had to park at a separate parking location and take a shuttle bus into town and walk to the stadium from there. We parked around 8pm after having to pay $15 to park even though we were not told we would have to pay to park
Luckily they had plenty of busses running and we made it into town by around 8:15p and promptly walked across the river into the stadium. Luckily only one big act was playing this night so after we stopped to use the restroom we were able to work our way up to around 75 feet or so off to the right of the stage for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros which started at 9:30p. They were absolutely amazing!! You guys may know one of their songs called "Home" and they saved that one for the finale. I had done some some research on to them to learn some of their other songs too and each one they played they did a great job with. Even the ones that I didn't know, I liked a lot. They were probably my 2nd favorite act from the entire weekend.
They finished probably somewhere around 11p but our night wasn't done when they finished playing. We decided that in order to miss out on the longer line for the bus that we would walk around downtown some to just soak in the atmosphere and get some pictures. The city was done up amazingly and it was crazy to think that this whole event was happening just one town over from me!
While we were walking around we ran into my former boss whom I used to Lifeguard for and she told me how she got to Lifeguard for Mumford just that morning and how they were hosting the after party after they played from 1am to 4am on Saturday night. HOW COOL WAS THAT!? She also told me that since she lived close to the event, that I could park at her house and walk from there instead of paying $15 and taking a bus.
After getting done talking to her we continued walking around and came upon one of the two stages they had set up downtown for smaller acts to play on and stopped to listen to a group called the "Henhouse Prowlers". These guys were totally a surprise! Holy crap were they good! They could harmonize like crazy and put on a great show for only having 4 members. Probably my third favorite performance from this weekend and it was on a minor stage! Needless to say this got me really pumped for the next night.
Saturday:
We woke up bright and early because we were just too excited for what was about to happen. I mean freaking MUMFORD AND SONS and they were just a mere few hours away!
We left the house around 10:30 and headed into town. Parking at my boss' house was MUCH better than taking the buss and having to pay so that made our day start out great. We decided to walk into downtown and see what everything looked like in the daylight and get some caffeine because neither of us got much sleep. While we were waiting to order our caffeine we noticed a Mumford band member just chilling in the coffee shop reading the paper and drinking his drink
We couldn't believe it! I was scared to bother him, but Hannah wasn't and we were able to snag a picture. (Unfortunately it's on Hannah's phone so I don't have it) but his accent was crazy and he was super nice about it. He asked where we were from and when I said "Just a town over" he said "Oh well then brilliant result for you then." to which my only answer was. YUP!
As you can imagine this just MADE our morning as it was completely unexpected and I couldn't believe we had pulled it off. By this point the gates to the venue had already opened so we went in to do some shopping and see what our foot options would be during the 7 bands that were to play that day. I bought a Troy Stopover t-shirt which you could only get inside of the event and had the Stopover logo on it.
After we did some relaxing in the shade, IT WAS HOT!, we decided what our game plan would be to get as close to the stage as possible. At 2:30 we decided to get some food, stock up on water and snacks and head into the crowd to get as close as we could to the action. Keep in mind, Mumford didn't go on till 8:30! I got some rootbeer glazed ham sliders which were absolutely AMAZING! You could taste the rootbeer and it was just crazy good. Hannah had some jambalaya which she didn't really care for. We bought a couple waters and bags of chips and dove in. At this point the clouds started rolling in which helped out with the heat, but not so much with our bladders. We'll get to that later.
We got up to about 30ft from the stage and realized that was going to be as close as we were going to get since everyone in front of us had been there since the gates opened and had claimed their spots with blankets and the like. There were no seats, only open ground to sit/stand on and that's why we needed to get up there so early to claim our 'spot'. We took our turns standing and sitting in our area while the acts before Mumford played. There were a few strange ones, and a couple that were decent. I think most people only cared about the act before Mumford and Mumford themselves though as most people alternated between sitting and standing themselves.
We tried to ration our water because we thought it was going to be hot still and we would sweat it out and need it to stay hydrated. However, since the clouds moved in and it started to rain on us even we realized that we needed to ration our water so we wouldn't have to end up needing to use the restroom as we didn't want to risk losing our spots! So, we ended up holding it for over 8 hours by the time it was all said and done
however it was totally worth it!
Old Crow Medicine Show was the act that came on before Mumford and they were very, very good themselves. They put on a solid show and they even brought out Mumford to play "Wagon Wheel" with them as their next to last song. I'm sure a lot of you know this song by them and them playing it live with Mumford was a treat indeed.
After OCMS was done the crowd was abuzz with excitement as it was finally time for Mumford! Let me just tell you, they put on a show! You can just tell that they love to play live, especially the lead singer Marcus Mumford! At one point he was playing the drum set on stage and when he was done playing them he just stood up and walked through them to get to the mic up front so he could finish singing his part. They also brought out a couple parts of the acts that had gone on before them and covered The Beatles "Come Together"! Now, obviously I've never gotten to see The Beatles play live, but I can only assume that this was the best thing ever except for seeing them live. They did such a great job with the song and the crowd was totally into it which just made it that much better.
Overall, this was easily the best concert or festival type event that I've ever been to and can't wait to hopefully do something like it again.
From the looks of it, I think I'll be able to convince her to have a Carlsberg as they are fairly rare and I've always wanted to try one. 
Needless to say I feel pretty lost right now. We've done the long distance thing before, but after having lived together for a year now watching her leave just sucked. We both know that this is the best thing for both of us. I can stay here at my current job and not have to worry about moving around and possibly loosing salary and she can get the degree she's always wanted from the school that she wanted to get it from. It just means we will have bi-weekly weekend visits pretty much from now until she graduates. 
