Abbey Road on the River in Louisville, KY!!

We made our way back home from DC sometime on May 21.  It was a grueling 18 hours drive.  Not that we haven't made that drive about 20 other times in my life... That's us, The Nelsons.  We've never heard of an airplane.
Like I said, we got home on the 21, I unpacked, then packed again for Louisville. Soooo many road trips!
Wednesday the 22nd was the last day I could see Erin and Lauren before they become some fancy city slickers in the Big Apple.  Yup.. they left me here in Kansas by myself while they're prancing around New York all summer.  We caught up at Coaches then went to Talk of the Town in Overland Park.  There's never a boring moment with these ladies!

 

The next day was the big day! Abbey Road on the River!!! My mom, Caity and I had planned this trip in August of 2012, so about 9 months previously.  We dropped a small fortune on the Ticket to Ride, backstage passes, meet and greets and everything in between.  We decided to go big or go home, and it was worth every penny!

On May 23, 2013, 362 days after Caity and I parted in the greatest city in the world, we were reunited once again in Louisville, Kentucky!!  The second we saw each other was like nothing had changed.  We were just SO HAPPY to be back together again!  The first night of the festival was sort of low key.  We walked around, grabbed some beer and listened to some great tribute bands!  The Rockits played on the first night also, so it was definitely fun to see some familiar faces on stage!  Listening to them brought back a flood of memories from the Cavern, it felt like we were back in the dirty, sweaty cellar in Liverpool, England again and I loved it!  It's hard to recreate, but our favorite Cavern bands did a great job bringing part of it to America!!

The last band went on around 1 am, and Caity and I were planning on heading back to the hotel, but apparently at AROTR, only the lame people go to bed at 1 am.  Every night after all of the bands have performed for the day everyone gathers in the Galt House bar and hallways with their guitars, drums, pianos, violins and beer.  At any given point in the night you could find at least 7 groups of people all sitting around, drinking beer and singing Beatles songs.  If you weren't singing songs you were mingling with band members and other festival goers and just having a jolly old time.  People would be up until 5 or 6 am on most nights.  It was completely fabulous and Caity and I partook in the beer drinking, singing and mingling every night.

Reunited

Singing songs til the wee hours of the night!

The next day was special because it was The Shakers first show of the festival!  Caity is the reason The Shakers came to AROTR.  She got in touch with the person in charge and told him how great of a band they were, and eventually he said yes!  We were so excited to see them play in America!!  They came up on stage and it was just how we remembered them.  Fun, engaging and energetic, and people loved them! 

The whole week was a blur of great music, new and old friends, Beatles, laughs and beer.  I'd go into a play by play of the week if I could, but I don't have time to write a novel.  So here's a breakdown of the days:

Thursday:
First day of the festival
Rockits first show!
Our first late night experience at the Galt House

Friday:
Shakers first show!
Rockits play
Listen to awesome music
Mingle and drink beer
A Tribute to the Cavern with The Rockits and The Shakers at 12 pm!

Saturday:
The Peter Asher Show
Shakers play twice!
Beer, music, Beatles, friends

Sunday:
The Laurence Juber show (AMAZING by the way!)
Rockits and Shakers
Peter Noone and the Herman's Hermits show!
Meet and Greet with Peter Asher, Laurence Juber, Peter Noone, Denny Laine and Tony Bramwell

Monday:
Leaving day :(

Obviously, there were more bands there.  Some of our favorites were Beatolution (baby Beatles!), Itchycoo Park, Choking Smokers, The Newbees, BritBeat, The Rigby's and tons more.  Every day Caity, my mom and I would wake up, grab a late lunch and head to the festival!  We'd be there all day long!  My mom went home around 11 each night while Caity and I came home around 3 every night.

So Friday was superfun because it was the first day of the festival, where we could really soak it all in see all of the bands!  At any given point in time during the festival, there would be at least 3 shows going on, so we had to pick and choose which ones to go to.  Obviously, we went to every single Rockits and Shakers show.  On Friday night, there was a tribute to the Cavern show with both of them playing back to back.  It was just like being back home in the Cavern! :)

Saturday was the Peter Asher show.  It was a little over two and a half hours.  Peter sang with the late Gordon via a video of just Gordon singing.  It was the closest anyone will ever come to hearing them sing again and it was very very cool!  Denny Laine, a former member of the Wings, came and sang a song as did a later member of the band Badfinger.  Peter told stories of how he came to be and how the Beatles had an impact on his life.  If you didn't know, Paul McCartney wrote a song for Peter and Gordon, which went straight to No. 1.  It kick started their career.  Lennon/McCartney proceeded to write a couple more songs for them, which were all a huge success.  Peter and Gordon can credit the start of their career and their success to the Beatles.  Later Peter became a music producer and produced many big names like James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and many more.  Lately he's been working on a lot of popular movies and his daughter is the lead singer in Cobra Starship.  The look of Austin Powers was centered around him, and his sister is Jane Asher, whom dated Paul during the Beatlemania years.  It was very very cool to see Peter Asher and to listen to him tell his life story!  After the show, we all stood in line to meet and get autographs from Peter and Denny!
My mom brought a cake mix box from Jane Asher's Cake Shop in London for Peter Asher to sign.  He thought it was hilarious!

There's Mr. Asher!

My mother haning Peter his sister's cake box to sign hahaha

Paul's handwritten lyrics to A World Without Love

No one was sure what was going on...

On Sunday we did the usual with music and beer and whatnot.  We also saw Laurence Juber play!  He is hands down the best guitar player I have ever seen play.  It was incredible what he could do with an acoustic guitar.   He played many different artists songs, and about half Beatles songs.  He never sang, but he literally didn't need to.  With his one guitar he played the melody to the song AND the lyrics at the same time.  His hand was moving up and down the neck of the guitar like crazy and his other hand was picking at the chords so fast, you couldn't even see what he was doing.  I was completely blown away by his talent, it was incredible.

That same day we also saw Peter Noone of the Herman's Hermits!  I was especially excited for this because The Herman's Hermits Greatest Hits cassette was my absolute favorite album when I was younger.  I listed to that cassette day and night until I knew the songs forward and backward.  I don't know why, but I loved them!  We bought meet and greet tickets so we could hear Peter Noone, Peter Asher, Laurence Juber, Denny Laine and Tony Bramwell talk and answer questions before the Peter Noone show.  It was amazing to see these people on stage with only one degree of separation from The Beatles.  They told stories and engaged the small crowd that was there.  After we got to take pictures with all of them!  Peter Asher LOVED Caity and I.  He went to high school two blocks from where Caity and I lived in London, so when we told him we lived on Tufton Street, he said he knew right where it was and he was really interested in us after that!  He said he didn't get many younger fans.  During his show he talked about all the artists and movies he's collaborated with like Fall Out Boy and Madagascar.  He said that he's happy his younger fans can relate to all of that when the older crowd doesn't.  He loved talking to us and kept asking us questions, it was great! By the enf of our 5 minute conversation we were basically best friends, while the people in line behind us were getting irritated.  He was so great!

Asher, Bramwell, Juber, Noone, Laine.

Strange man, Tony Bramwell..

Us and our best friends Peter!

Anyways, back to Peter Noone.  After the meet and greet we headed straight to the Peter Noone and The Herman's Hermits show!  We also had bought tickets for the first 5 rows of the show, so we could get a good seat!  We were about three rows back.  Peter Noone was hilarious and loved to act goofy on stage!  He put on a performance rather than a show, it was great!  He impersonated Mick Jagger and cracked some great jokes on stage.  And hearing his songs that I grew up with, live, was SO COOL!  I sang along to every single one and I couldn't get enough of it!  Midway through the show, he tried to throw a CD to me, but the lady in front of me caught it.  He was like cool I'm glad you caught that, lady, but I was trying to throw it to the girl in the while behind you!  I was like woah, me?!?  He said I knew all of the words to his songs and to make sure the CD he threw went to me!  It was pretty darn cool!  After the show, we all stood in line to get his autograph.  Once we got to him and talked to Caity and I (he was obviously so fun to talk to) and said he was impressed that I knew all of his songs!  He was cracking jokes to Caity, my mom and I.  Caity bought a shirt for him to sign, and he spelled her name wrong so he kept writing over the "K" to make it look like a "C", like no one would notice hahhaa.  We loved him, he loved us!

Yes, that album picture is him from 50 years ago that he took from someone in the audience.

 Sunday night was probably the funnest of the nights.  Everyone was at the Galt House bar since it was the last night.  We did singalongs, hung out with The Shakers and Rockits and met a lot more people!

Abbey Road on the River is an experience that I will never forget!  I had the time of my life and those four days went by faster than I could have imagined.  Caity and I met some incredible people and the memories we made together will last a lifetime.  I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to attend the largest Beatles festival in the world, especially with our Shakers and Rockits in America with us!!  I don't think AROTR would have been half as amazing if those two bands weren't there!  I know that Caity and I have started a tradition that will last many many years to come!

Next blog: My unforgettable night at the Paul McCartney concert!!

xx