I have been wanting to write about last weekend, but I needed a week of sleep to recover from it to be able to write about it. Here is just a quick recap of last Saturday…

The only thing Sean wanted for Christmas was tickets to see Dropkick Murphy’s. Atlanta was just one of the stops on their twentieth anniversary tour. We bought tickets months ago and have waited patiently till the event day arrived.

It turned out that the concert date would be the same weekend as the first annual Tybee Bar Olympics. That was something we did not want to miss.

The concert was on Saturday night. And the Tybee event was on Sunday. We can make this work!

Our good friend Jennifer Smoot, also known as Smoot, was asked to sing the national anthem at the opening ceremonies of the Tybee Bar Olympics. Smoot lives in Atlanta, but would be on Tybee for the weekend. She told us to stay at her condo after the concert. Her place was only minutes from the venue, we took her up on her offer.

Friday night, just twelve hours before we were scheduled to make the four hour road trip north, our daughter told us the car was making a noise. Ugh… now Sean would have to diagnose and fix the problem before we hit the road. Smoot got word of this, and as she handed us the keys to her condo, she gave us the keys to her car too and told us to take her car and not worry about a thing. What a generous friend!! We love our Smoot!!

Fast forward twenty four hours.

We had plans to meet up with another Irish Band, The Muckers, playing at Smith’s Olde Bar. Sean’s band and these guys have a show booked together in Atlanta on Memorial weekend. Always fun to meet up with other like minded folks. We both loved their show and can’t wait till they take the stage with In For a Penny.  As soon as their show was finished we headed over to The Tabernacle where Dropkick Murphy’s were playing.

The show was amazing! I try to avoid big crowds so big venue concerts are not usually my thing. I prefer the small town bar or pub to see live music. But this venue, was an old church converted into a concert hall, I felt privileged to be there. We sat in a balcony and enjoyed the people watching as much as the show. The band brought good old fashioned fun and energy to the crowd.  I can’t wait to see them again and would travel again to do so! If they are coming to your town, be sure to get tickets early as most shows are complete sell outs.

The rest of the evening we enjoyed our date night and hung out at a local bar watching the UFC fights. Later that night we finally ate a meal at a 24 hour diner. We were both starving as we hadn’t eaten since before we left Savannah. By 3 am we were finally crashing at Smoot’s condo. We grabbed a quick three hours of sleep, even though it seemed like twenty minutes!

Before the sun was up we were headed back South for the Tybee Bar Olympics. I’ll save the details of that event and the 1000+ photos for another post.