Chapter 87

There were several highlights during the rest of the concert.

Liz started out her second set with a heartfelt speech thanking Glen Carter. The original that we’d put together simply expressed gratitude for his appearance. Liz did a good job of ad-libbing her other expressions of thankfulness.

Then she did her best to live up to her title by putting on one of the most amazing performances of her career. The entire stadium was on its feet by the time the last song wrapped up. I glanced down the row beside me and saw Glen Carter, his wife, his son and his daughter-in-law standing and cheering along with the rest of the fans.

Liz’s third costume was a pair of blue jeans (that fit her very well) and a white T-shirt (which also hugged her curves). She began the set by bringing her parents up to the stage to introduce them and to thank them for coming to join her for her big show.

Mickey and Bev were rarely seen in public and, to the best of my knowledge, had never appeared at one of Liz’s concerts. But they handled the scrutiny very well. They hugged their daughter, waved to the crowd and came back down the stairs with big smiles on their faces.

Liz shared the stage with Chelsea Rome during the third set. The young woman’s stage presence was far different than her normal persona. Chelsea rarely spoke in anything more than a whisper when she was around the other (bigger) stars.

On stage, however, she was dynamic. She stood almost as tall as Liz and had some serious skill with the guitar that I had somehow managed to miss during rehearsals. Chelsea held her own on one of Liz’s songs and then brought down the house with a live performance of her first top-30 single.

The next four sets brought the other guests to the stage. Liz would do one of her songs to open things up and then announce the guest. They would perform a few duets and then the guest would do a solo before slipping away while Liz wrapped up the set.

Lucas went first and it was evident that he was having a great time in Dallas. It was interesting to hear Liz’s versatility as she seamlessly shifted from her style to his.

Conny was the second guest and I finally got to hear the full version of “My Daddy Can Whip Your Daddy.” The biggest surprise (at least to me) was when the pair gave the full story about when the story was written and why. I knew Liz didn’t care much about what RFN thought about her but I was surprised that Conny would essentially call hers out.

I found out during the break that Conny had split from her first label a couple of years before so she had little allegiance to her old group.

Ben took the third spot. He and Liz stopped the show midway through and brought my mother up. Annabelle Blakely was not a shrinking violet but she looked positively flummoxed when Liz described her as “one of my favorite people and the person I learned the most from in my life.”

Melissa and Liz decided to do very little from each other’s catalog. They each did a song with the other singing harmony but then they switched to a few old-school duets from the 1970s and 1980s. It was pretty interesting.

The last set was all Liz and it was amazing. She told me that by bringing in other performers she was able to put all the best concert songs together. I thought most of her work was concert-worthy (but, as I’ve noted, I might be biased).

The first encore performance was the entire ensemble. They started out with The Eagles’ “Hotel California” and then performed a medley of songs. They wrapped up with the Don McLean classic “American Pie.”

Ben pulled the microphone away at the end of the song.

“Now, I know the lyrics of that last one might make you think that Liz’s ascension to the throne was orchestrated, ” he said. “Well, in a way, it was. Glen Carter called us all last week to let us know he planned to make his announcement. Liz was the only person on the stage that didn’t know about it. I just didn’t want the haters out there to think Liz had anything to do with the ceremony. She didn’t; so go back to your troll caves.”

I couldn’t help but laugh when he dropped the mic and walked off the stage. I knew he’d taken his fair share of hits on social media in the past few years. He always rolled with the punches and didn’t really rise to the bait. Now it was clear he was indignant about the things that were likely to be said about Liz.

Liz started out the second encore alone on the stage. She smiled at the crowd as they chanted her name when she brought the microphone to her lips.

“If you follow me on social media, you know I had a little party at my house last week, ” she said. “We called it our first ‘Girls Night In’ so I thought I should bring up the participants to sing some of the songs that we butchered that night.”

The crowd laughed as Chelsea, Conny and Melissa strolled out.

“Of course, it wasn’t just us, ” Conny pointed out. “We had some guest stars for that night, too, including the wives of two of the males you’ve put up with tonight. They put up with them all the time and you can imagine what that must be like. Let’s hear it for Kim Rose and Gwen Williams.”

Kim was an actress and was accustomed to being in the limelight. Gwen was content to stay behind the scenes. Her only exposure to being front and center was during the red-carpet events that she would attend with Lucas. Still, Gwen kept her head high and her face set in a smile as she came out with Kim.

“And you talk about having to put up with somebody, ” Melissa said. “Claire Bostwick has been with me since I first got to Nashville. She’s seen me at my best and, more often, my worst. But she’s my friend and I’d be lost without her.”

Claire was nervous when she walked out – but obviously happy at the description. I had wondered early on if she was a mere employee but the longer I’d been around her the more I’d realized that she was almost like a sister to Melissa.

“And I was lucky enough to have two of my friends with us, too, ” Liz said. “So let’s have a big hand for Skye Bennett and Jill Clay. They’re more like family than friends to me.”

I had been excluded from the rehearsals for this portion of the show. None of the guys had been permitted to see the practices.

I understood when they started into the song I had managed to record on my phone.

“It’s just a girl’s night in, ” Liz said.

“A night without the men, ” Conny added.

“We’re just laughing and joking, ” Chelsea offered.

“And drinking and smoking, ” Melissa sang.

“Stop the music!” Gwen yelled. The band complied at once.

“Hey, we’re missing something!” Kim said in her normal voice.

“Yeah, ” Jill said.

“It’s not the same, ” Skye opined.

“I know!” Claire said with a big smile. She held up a finger and disappeared behind the drum set.

She reappeared in a moment with a tray and seven plastic cups filled with a green liquid. They all took a cup and then a drink.

“Yep!” Melissa said. “Blakely’s Island Punch! Just what the doctor ordered. OK, let’s rock this now!”

They did, too. The song was pretty funny but it was also poignant. It was about the changing roles of womanhood through the years, from the Rosie Riveters of the 1940s, the June Cleavers of the 1950s, the bra burners of the 1960s and the women’s libbers of the 1970s.

I had expected the non-professional singers to join in during the chorus. Instead they sang along from the outset and the song didn’t suffer for their participation. I was amazed that a group of drunks could put together anything like it. The crowd seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. There were several people filming the song with their cameras and I made a bet with myself that it would be all over the Internet before we left the stadium.

When it finished, Skye, Jill, Gwen, Claire and Kim made their way off the stage and Chelsea took the center of the stage.

“I got a call last month from Liz Larimer, ” she said. “First off, it shocked the crap out of me when she called. Then she told me that she’d written a song that she thought fit my voice better than hers. I’m no dummy. I know that everything Liz touches is gold. I agreed without even knowing what it was about. A week later I got another call from her. She told me that she had performed the song while on vacation in Mexico and that it had hit the Internet. She wanted me to know that her feelings wouldn’t be hurt if I passed on it.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes.

“That wasn’t going to happen, ” she said. “I sat there and listened to the song … I don’t know … a hundred times. I couldn’t believe anyone would pass on something so wonderful. I asked Liz if she wanted the song back because I wasn’t sure I could do it justice. She told me that it was mine and that I could do it any way I wanted to do it … to put my own personal brand on it.”