Chefprefers BLOG

The Nashville Predators NHL hockey team have a nickname known as Smashville. We went to a game on the last night and my older brother, who we were visiting, had mentioned that he had never been to an NHL game. He’s been living in the US most of his life and I guess hockey isn’t his game. None of us played ice hockey growing up, so I’m not surprised.

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The Predators lost to the Canucks, and the locals took it badly. I don’t think the Smashvillians like losing. They like to win and they would do anything to get an advantage. Eg. I noticed at the beginning of the game when they were announcing the Vancouver players, you could hear the Nashvillian crowd yell “Sucks!” after each player being called and then after the local side scored a goal, the fans would yell the goalie’s name and continues with “You suck!” and for good measure, they added, “It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault! You suck!” apparently it comes from a tradition where a few guys in the nosebleed seats started the chants. Refer to article Nashville predators chant.

But Tennessee’s capital isn’t all about the hockey, far from it. Just another billionaire who wants to own a hockey team and finds an obscure city. Anyway, it’s known for its country music. People like Johnny Cash, June Carter, Patty Loveless, Everly Brothers, Dolly Parton and many many more. We didn’t see any of them live because there’s a new wave coming through. We saw the John Cash Museum and the country wall of fame as well as plenty of bands in the clubs and pubs. In fact, on Broadway Street, pubs are assembled one after the other and you could literally walk out one, take two steps and fall into another. Some pubs have multiple floors and a rooftop, each playing a different band. Quite incredible how you can listen to the music in one place and not hear the other. The musicians are very talented, you can imagine it would be hard to get a gig here. Every Tom, Dick and Sally would need credentials. It was very common for bands to ask the audience for requests and they would deliver. That would be hard to know that many songs. Although they had their iPhones attached to their Mic stands and used them to look up lyrics and song patterns. Modern-day musicians are very lucky to have such a thing I’m pretty sure before smartphones, the musician had to know or say “Sorry don’t know that one”. Especially if it was a band instead of a solo artist. Tbh, I’m not much of a country music buff, I only came here to visit my brother.

My brother’s family lives outside of Nashville in Belle Meade. The Uber from the bands to his house was $20. Not bad although the South Pacific Paso (Australian dollar) as my brother would say, is pretty low, 58 US cents to the Aussie dollar. It made everything look expensive, although if the dollar was even, it was not cheap either. So, that didn’t matter here because my generous brother mostly took care of our expenses. He likes to splurge every so often and one night we went to a restaurant called Carne Mare.

An Italian place with dark mood lighting, 18 waiters and an additional drinks menu for the elite. Waiters pampered you andmy sister inlaw looked a little pale once she saw the price for some items which my brother reassured her that he would take care of the bill (Check). So she sat back and enjoyed.

We spent the next couple of days seeing Blue Grass, Honky Tonk and country pop bands. The rest of the time we spent at my brother’s house swimming in the spa and pool, walking the neighbour and biking down the greenways. My brother still has a young family (13 and a 9-year-old) and he and his second wife do school pickups and volunteer for whatever is needed. Between the two of them, they had 16 kids. Ranging from to 9 to 38 years old. So, you can imagine, they are so over raising kids. They occasionally go out to watch a band and leave the oldest to look after the youngest. All the other kids have left the nest. Our host has indulged in a nice home with lots of perks such as a elaborate entertainment system of 5 TVs, 23 speakers, a security camera system and lots of electronics to support it. With one click of a button, he could watch the football game on all the TVs or be able to watch five different cable services on either TV. However on the Sunday when we wanted to watch an NFL game. The whole system went down and ended up watching the game on his phone. Fair dinkum! I, the maintainer went to action and got it sorted. Although, he missed the football game. Should I mention the problem with the pool gates that took the strength of two guys to open? Yea Naaaah!

Next up, the land of the flash cars