Let me just say right off the bat that P!NK has been on my bucket list for years, if not decades! Then, one day in February of this year, my friend Stephanie, who is also a huge P!NK fan, told me about her Trustfall tour and that it was coming to Louisville in November. Fast forward to August and Stephanie and I finally pulled the trigger on tickets and and accommodations for the weekend! To say I was excited was the understatement of the century! Basically every week I was texting Steph with a countdown! Louisville is just a 2 hour drive for us, but we knew the concert was going to get done late at night, so we stayed the night in Louisville and made a weekend of it! I couldn't get over the fact that we had this concert earmarked for 9 whole months and it was finally here! Shall we *ahem* Get This Party Started?? 😉
Stephanie and I left my house shortly before 1pm on Saturday the 11th. Check-in at the hotel was at 3, and we wanted to get there as early as possible so we had time to relax and get ready without being rushed. Traffic was a breeze, and we were soon greeted by the modest skyline of Louisville! It was my first time there and I must say, I really liked it! It was an easy city to navigate and it had that small-town city feel, the same one that I feel in love with in regards to Cincinnati! Must be a Midwest thing! Anyway, we were able to get into our room right away, and now that we were there, our excitement was amplified! This is really happening! We chose a hotel close to the arena so we could just walk instead of having to deal with traffic. It was the way to go in regards to convenience for sure! Our hotel was only a half a mile from the arena, the KFC Yum Center.
I did put a lot of thought into my outfit for this concert, and I actually bought my clothes in August! My line of thinking was this: I wanted to wear bright and bold colors, and if I held off until closer to the concert date, all the stores would be carrying darker fall clothes. So, one day when I was running errands, I popped into TJ Maxx of all places (I never shop here) and found the perfect bright yellow spaghetti strap top. I wanted a pink jacket to go with it, because, well, P!NK, but I couldn't find one in stores that I had in mind, so I took to Amazon, and it's like they read my mind! The jacket I ended up getting was the exact one I was looking for! And it fit like a glove when it arrived! I'm usually skeptical when I buy clothes online, but maybe this has made me a believer! I didn't get any pictures on the day, but below is a pic of when I first tried it on, and actually, what you see is exactly what I was wearing from head to toe!
Anyway, back to Louisville! We decided to leave the hotel around 4:30pm, but Steph and I are so on top of things that we were ready around 4pm, so we just left then, allowing us plenty of time to eat beforehand, walk to the arena, get merch, find our seats and settle in. We shared an elevator down to the lobby with a couple gals who were also going to the concert and they told us that P!NK had a merch truck set up outside the arena if we wanted to buy ahead of time. After learning that, we decided to go buy our stuff before dinner as to not have to stand in line forever closer to concert time, and that decision paid off as we were able to walk right up to the truck! I opted to not get anything, but Steph bought a tour shirt! With our merchandise in hand, we headed back towards the hotel to look for food. Between our hotel and the arena is a cool couple blocks of restaurants and nightlife called 4th Street Live, and we found a cool little BBQ joint there where we ate! It was delicious southern comfort food, and the perfect amount to hold us over for the night!
After dinner it was to the venue! Sure enough, when we arrived for the 2nd time, there were lines at the merch truck, and even bigger lines inside at all the shirt vendors, so it was a wonderful piece of advice from those ladies in the elevator to go earlier and buy stuff! Getting through security seemed very chaotic, and from 2 people who have worked (Stephanie still does work) in a stadium setting, we both agreed that there was probably a better way of going about scanning tickets. Either way, we were in the building and headed up to our seats!
We got there a little before 7. We knew going into it that P!NK had 2 opening acts, so we figured she wouldn't take the stage until 9, so we had time to get comfortable. Our seats were on the side and slightly behind the stage, but when we got to our seats, we were disappointed that over half the stage was obstructed by her big projector screen! I felt really duped when we bought the tickets because nowhere did it say that we were getting an obstructed view. We did, however, notice that our ticketed section was the last section they were selling, so we ended up moving one section over to our left where we had a clear view of the whole stage. At first we were thinking they would raise the screen when she started, but they didn't, so we were glad that we moved when we did. We figured that the worst thing that could happen is an usher would come tell us to move back, but no one ever came. And we actually started a domino effect of other people coming into our new section, most likely with the same obstruction problem! We now had plenty of room to stretch out and dance the night away!
The first Opening act started at 7pm, a DJ called KidCutUp. He basically played pop songs with his own beats behind it. Now, this concert has been my 2nd experience with a DJ as an opening act, and I just don't get it; just play regular music over the loud speaker instead. I get having DJs for nightclubs, but concerts are a little different.
The 2nd opening act was an Indie rock group called Grouplove. I did not care for them, but I did recognize one song of theirs, maybe from a commercial or something. Both opening acts played for 45 minutes, then it was anticipation for P!NK!!
She made us wait a little bit, but it was well worth it! P!NK made her grand entrance from the rafters with the song Get This Party Started (video clip), and that pretty much set the tone for the night! She started with a bang, and it only went up from there! When her feet finally hit the floor, it was a 100% party on the stage! P!NK was dancing and doing air kicks, her back up dancers were riding around on pink flamingos, and it was almost like sensory overload, and we were here for it! She had us out of our seats in mere seconds!
She kept the energy up with Raise Your Glass next, and I barely remember her singing it because I was so overwhelmed! It was then that I realized I had never been to a concert with this much energy and all-out fun on stage! I was fully immersed at this point! I found it completely amazing that through all the dancing and running around, P!NK still had the pipes to belt out the lyrics, exactly like she does on the radio! She's a Rockstar!
A few songs later, she put on the brakes and slowed it down with Try and What About Us! I absolutely love What About Us, so I was in my element for sure! While she kills it on her fast songs, her ballads hold a big spot in my heart! Her lyrics are so powerful and they just speak to me in one way or the other!
After an outfit change, she came back out and sang Turbulence (video clip), which was one of the songs that I didn't know, but she did an aerial routine to this, which we absolutely loved!
After Turbulence, she sat at the piano and played/sang I'm Not Dead, and To Make You Feel My Love (video clip)! I was totally surprised by the 2nd song because I didn't know I was getting a Garth Brooks crossover during this concert! But actually, when I read about To Make You Feel My Love, I found out that Bob Dylan originally wrote and performed it first!
When she got up from the piano, she then performed Just Give Me A Reason. This song was recorded as a duet with Nate Ruse from Fun, so I was curious as to how this was going to work. It turned out that Nate Ruse was projected on the big screen and they sang it as if he was on stage with her! Very cool idea! Also, neither of us had any clue what Nate Ruse looked like until tonight! I have loved this song since the first time I heard it, so I was blown away hearing it live! Then she went right into her iconic song, Perfect (video clip), which is Stephanie's favorite, and it happened to be the longest video of the night that I recorded! It's like I knew! During Perfect, i actually captured a proposal and P!NK's reaction to it! I had no idea about this until afterwards when i was watching all my videos! She ended her 2nd act with Just Like Fire, and that is such a badass anthem that I've always loved!
When P!NK started her 3rd act, she stripped it down and sang a beautiful acoustic version of Please Don't Leave Me! Check out that video clip HERE! She continued to amaze us all! I love acoustic versions of any song, when there's nowhere for a voice to hide! Her next song was a recording she did with her daughter Willow during COVID, called Cover Me In Sunshine. Willow actually made an appearance to sing a portion of the song, and that was amazing! Willow is only 12 years old, but her stage presence is second to none! I guess if you have P!NK as a mom, it kinda comes with the territory! She was fearless! P!NK then sang a song I didn't know called When I Get There. She dedicated it to her dad who had passed away. This song had me in tears as it hit me straight in the heart reminding me about my late father, too. Even though I didn't know that song, it immediately shot up on my favorites list! P!NK ended this act with the song I Am Here. This song is fairly new, and it has such a beautiful and powerful message of self love!
The song Trustfall started P!NK's final act with a punch! She and her dancers got up on a tower on stage and did acrobatics as if they were falling off the tower. Obviously there were trampolines below where they would pop right back up in somersaults, continuing throughout the whole song! It was amazing! She then sang Blow Me One Last Kiss, and Never Gonna Not Dance Again, which was super high energy! The first time I heard the latter song was when she performed it on the VMA's earlier this year and it was an instant hit for me!
Then the finale was upon us! P!NK is widely known for her aerial stunts and she saved the best for last! She strapped into an apparatus which would take her flying through the air all around the stadium, all while belting out her song So What (video clip) without skipping a beat! She was singing while doing flips in the air, while being moved around the arena at what I would guess was around 10-15mph! P!NK has stated before that she feels the most comfortable singing upside down in mid-air than she does on the stage. And after seeing it live, I don't doubt it! She absolutely KILLED this performance! And I couldn't believe that I just saw it with my own eyes! P!NK has said that, in order to sing while flying through the air, she practices by laying on her back on the ground and sings while someone sits on her diaphragm! It was incredible!
And what felt like a snap of the finger, the show was over! I thought she might come back out for an encore, but why would she when she had just done the most epic finale of them all!?!?!? P!NK was simply amazing! I could go on for hours with different superlatives about her, but I don't think anything would come close to what I just witnessed! On the walk back to the hotel, Stephanie described her as "THAT bad bitch but in the best way possible!" And I could not agree more! After years of waiting, I am finally able to say that I've seen P!NK! It was soo hard to wind down from this concert! It was kind of a weird feeling to have been anticipating this event for months, then it happens, and then you nosedive off the high that you were just on with nothing else of this proportion to look forward to! This concert was probably in the top 20 events in my entire life! As I'm writing this, I STILL can't believe that I saw her live! I'm so glad that I was able to go with Stephanie, who loves P!NK just as much, if not more, than me! One thing that remains with me is that she is such an unapologetic human, and I just love her free spirit! If I could only have half of her confidence...!
P!NK actually had a Summer Carnival tour that brought her to Cincinnati in July, and Stephanie was working that show, so she was able to get a little preview then! But now she was able to fully immerse herself into this concert in Louisville and have the best time! It was quite the night!
If you thought our weekend was over, guess again! Sunday morning we had tickets for the Louisville Slugger Factory Tour! I had always wanted to go there, and this was the perfect opportunity! Stephanie was there years ago, but being the baseball fans that both of us are, it wasn't hard to twist her arm to go again! We had a little time before the tour, so we walked the river for a little bit. It was a gorgeous morning!
The Louisville Slugger factory is nestled right downtown, and you can't miss the huge baseball bat that's 120ft tall and weighs 68,000 lbs! I had seen this in pictures, but to see it in person was something else!
We all gathered for the tour in the Forest Room for an introduction. Louisville Slugger gets all their lumber from a forest in Pennsylvania. There, they cut the trees down and shape the wood into cylinders roughly the size of bats, then they ship them all to the factory in Louisville! When they cut one tree down in the forest, another one gets planted in its place for a continuous cycle of bats!
From the trucks, those cylinders are taken to the Billets area. This is where each cylinder is shaved down into the rough shape of the bat. Each player gets their own specific bat from this very location. The players actually come to this very factory and pick them out in person! They get to choose the wood, from maple, birch, ash, and poplar. These different kinds of wood have different pliability and weight. In addition to that, they get to choose how heavy they want it, if they want their signature on the bat, and if they want the bat torched for that "worn in" look. At this stop, a players billet from each team was on display, and I was able to hold Christian Yelich's billet!
Then we moved on to the area where the knobs are cut off and the little indentation is created on the end of the barrel of the bat. Each bat goes through a machine to get this done. Our tour guide said it takes 30 seconds from start to finish to make a bat. Before machines, it took roughly 30 minutes. The factory can produce 4,000 bats per day!
After the knobs get cut off, the bats are taken to a station where each one is dipped by hand into a laquer to seal the wood. We were then able to hold bats that players actually came into the factory and created themselves. Our guide showed us one that Ronald Acuna Jr created, and it was 3 different colors of blue to look like the ocean and the handle was the original wood to depict the sand. He wanted the bat to represent the Dominican Republic where he's from!
Each area we went to had a video playing a short excerpt, walking us through additional steps of how the finishing touches go on the bat, like the logos and signatures of the players. For the Louisville Slugger logo, there is a decal that someone puts on the bat by hand, then seals, kind of like the process of putting on a temporary tattoo. Then, a machine engraves each bat exactly how a players signature is, then someone paints over it by hand to make it pop! It was amazing to me the amount of detail that goes into making just 1 bat. You never really think about it when you're watching a game! Our guide also said that all the extra sawdust gets recycled and shipped to chicken and turkey farms for their beds! I wonder if any of the Louisville Slugger sawdust makes it up to Barron for all the turkey farms in the area?!
After the tour, we were all given a free mini bat and knob! Then we were free to roam about the rest of the museum. Our first stop was the Bat Vault. This room had a wall covered in old bats. Here, each bat was numbered, for example R264. The R stands for the first initial of the last name of the player who used it, and the number indicates the number of bats that have been produced under that last name. So, in my example (and the example the worker used), we were looking at Babe Ruth's bat, and it was the 264th bat created in the whole of the R category.
Then, on our way to the batting cages, we walked across this room with a huge bronze ball and glove!
After that, we got to the batting cages. For $2, we could take 10 swings with a wide selection of players' bats, the likes of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. I chose Yelich's bat again! It was not a game-used bat, but it was still made to his specifications. His bat was really heavy, but I still went with it. The lady manning the cages asked if I wanted slow or fast pitch, and I told her fast. I figured if I was doing the batting cages, I may as well go all out! Wellll, I barely made contact with any of those balls! Even though they were probably only coming at me around 50mph, it was still way too fast for me to react. I don't know how major leaguers can have success at twice the speed! I think the lady felt bad for me because she let me have 10 more slow pitches! I had much more success with that! But every time I made contact, it would sting my hands! I think it was because the bat was too heavy! I had a lot of fun with that!
The of the last exhibits we went to was a room of Lego stadium's that someone replicated! It was pretty cool that he got a lot of the details right! There was a replica of Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and when Stephanie noticed it, she went "eeew" like it was the plague and she didnt want to go near it! 'Atta girl! Also in this room were 2 large quilts, one with squares of all the American League teams, and one with the National League teams! That is something I could probably do if I put my mind to it! Maybe a quilt of all Wisconsin teams!
The last area we went to was for photo ops with our favorite players bats. Unlike at the batting cages, these bats were actually game-used! I was trying to decide between using Babe Ruth's or Christian Yelich's, but Yelich won out! When will I ever get that chance again!
Our last stop was the gift shop, where I bought a pack of baseball cards for Robbie, and a Pint glass for our bar downstairs!
It was sadly then time to head back home. What an absolute blast we had this weekend, and it was the perfect way to kick off my birthday week! I will NEVER forget P!NK's concert, and the Louisville Slugger Museum was icing on the cake! And Stephanie was the perfect person to do it with!
"You can't move mountains by whispering at them" -P!NK
