The Pink Ladies see James Otto in Kernersville, NC on Aug. 30

I'm not sure how many of y'all know that Amy (from South Dakota), Kerrie (from South Georgia) and I have become really close friends because of James. Of course, we had never met because we live really far away from each other. (I live in North Carolina) but we had all three seen James a couple times each.

We planned to meet each other and then go to see James in Kernersville, NC on August 30th. So, Amy flew from South Dakota, and I picked her up from the airport in Charlotte, NC on Friday afternoon. It was very exciting. Amy is exactly how I imagined her to be. Then, on Saturday, Kerrie and her husband Kevin drove up from Georgia and arrived at my house around 4 PM. Kerrie is also just the way I imagined her! Finally, we were all together! It was a terrific "reunion" of the "pink ladies". (Michelle had nicknamed us James's pink ladies because we all three have pink Ottomaniac shirts. Michelle and Vonna have them too, so they are also pink ladies. We really wanted Michelle and Vonna to come, but neither of them were able to be here.)

So, after we got our "hello's" out of the way, we headed to the bathroom to get all dolled up. Then, at 6:30, we left for the Otto show. It would take a little over an hour to get there... we wanted to be there when the doors opened at 8:00. We were excited to see that when we got there, there was quite a crowd of people waiting outside to get in! So many people coming out to see James! His tour bus was parked right beside the club, so we got a really good look at it. We were really excited about that too! So, then we went inside the club escorted by Kevin, Kerrie's husband... how lucky he was to walk in with three pink ladies on his arm. LOL... (well, we weren't really on his arm, but you know) Not long after we got there, we were given backstage m&g passes, which was really awesome. And the local radio station came and took pictures of us, "pink ladies"... so I guess they will be putting that up on their website... I'm not sure. We also met dixianna from this site. She was really nice and so was her husband. He took a picture of her with us. I hope she posts it sometime.

There was an opening band, Even Keel, and they were really good. I liked them a lot... but near the end of their show, we left our front row position so that we could go to the "backstage" meet and greet... which was not really backstage, because there apparently wasn't a backstage... so they had it out by James's bus. Which was totally awesome! As soon as we walked up to James, he said "My Pink Ladies are here!"... he knew we were coming! It was awesome. We took pics with him and got him to sign some stuff. And talked to him a little... then we went back in and got back in our front row position. And waited for James to come on stage. It seemed to take forever. He was a little late, but very worth it!

His show was freekin awesome! He keeps getting better, every time I see him. He really is good at getting the crowd into the show. I loved every second of it. Amy was beside me taking lots of pictures... (I think she said like 240 pics!!!) and Kerrie was behind me making videos... I took a few pics, and a few videos, but mostly I just enjoyed the show! I like just watching the show and not worrying about cameras! So, I'm hoping Amy will let me use some of her pics! They are pretty darn awesome, as usual! (I'm sure she will post what James said about her pics... I don't wanna steal her thunder... LOL)

At the end, James did "Fat Bottom Girls" and invited the lovely women on stage to dance and shake their booties. He sorta pointed out a few girls, and then came over to us and said "I gotta get my girls up here"... talking about US! So, he helped us up onto the stage... he is a strong man! lol.. I still can't believe I danced on stage with James Otto!! It was awesome. There were other girls on stage who were really drunk and did some really nasty things... I wish they had not done that, but I guess James is used to it. I thought they were going to end up knocking him off the stage, so I kinda moved back as much as I could. It was nice to be up there... even if the drunk girls wouldn't let me very close to James.

Kerrie had bought a beer for James and he took a drink of it, but it got knocked over with all the hoochie mamas up on stage, so after James left the stage, I grabbed it as a souvenir and had James sign it later. James also said I could have his "sweat rag"... so I grabbed it also while I was up on stage. (it was
later cut into three pieces to share with Amy and Kerrie) Then we helped the drunk girls off the stage so that they wouldn't fall off... I seriously think some of them would have fallen off the stage if it weren't for me and Amy. I guess they were too drunk to realize that they could walk down the steps on the side... so they just wanted to jump off the front of the stage... poor drunk girls.

Anyway, then we got to meet James again at the after show meet and greet. James was such a good sport. He signed everything we pushed at him.. I think he signed 6 things for me that night. 3 pics, one of which he personalized to me, a set list, his beer bottle, and my pink shirt! He is sooo nice! He asked us if we were gonna hang out for a while and we said yes, and he said he would be there for a little while too... so we hung out there and waited for him to finish the m&g. Then he talked to us a little more and took some more pics with us... and then he retired to his bus because he had a 10 hour drive to Pa for another show. His road manager, Todd, came and talked to us after that, and thanked us for coming. He is a great guy too. I had brought my guitar, and he told me to go get it out of the car and he took it onto James's bus and had James sign it for me... which is FREEKIN amazing! Then we left and got something to eat because we were starving to death. The whole night was so cool... and more than I could've ever hoped for. We all had a great time seeing James together. I hope we can do it again! We got home at about 4:30 am and didn't get in bed until around 6 am because we were so excited!! Then Kerrie and Kevin had to leave on Sunday and drive back home.... so we had our first tearful goodbye! And then later that day, we had our final tearful goodbye at the airport in Charlotte when Amy had to fly back to South Dakota. We HAVE to get together again!!! I really miss them! Its so awesome how we've become such close friends and its all because of James!

Now, we are all busy editing pics and getting our stuff together to show y'all... It will prolly take Amy the rest of our natural lives to finish hers because she took so freekin many.

I can't wait til my next JOT!! He's coming to the fair in Virginia soon... and its just a couple hours from me.... maybe...........