Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Cotton Eyed Joes

Last weekend I started the first ever Club Connection Venue Tour! The purpose of this tour is to create a stronger relationship with club owners, DJs and Dance Instructors as well as gain footage of club patrons enjoying our music. I decided to stay relatively local and head north to Cotton Eyed Joe in Knoxville, TN. To avoid being that weird girl who goes to clubs alone with a video camera, I convinced two of my good friends to make the trip with me. Shannon, David and I got to Knoxville just in time to clean up, have dinner, watch the rest of the Vandy game and head to Joe's around 9:30 or 10:00pm.

Jackie Hicks was at the front door
supporting the Tennessee Vols and ready for a great night at the hottest country club in Knoxville! The club is equipped to be a source of entertainment for any consumer. Besides having a huge dance floor they also have a Mechanical Bull, two bowling lanes, in-house roping ring, pool tables, dart boards and video games.Their DJ, Billy, plays a great mix of new and classic country as well as mixing in hip-hop and pop dance favorites. Dancers range from young to old and beginner to advanced, but all have a good time every week at Cotton Eyed Joe.
After we met Jackie and Billy we claimed our seats close to the dance floor, got our drinks and made friends with neighboring tables. Though my friends were easily convinced into making the trip, they were not as easy to get on the dance floor!
I was going to be on my own when it came to learning these line dances. About 15 minutes after we got there our Matt Stillwell single "Shine" was played! I jumped up and grabbed the video camera I bought only two hours before, scrambled to turn it on and started taping the dancers on the dance floor. It was still early and the club was no where near full, but the few people that were there immediately got on the dance floor and knew just what to do! Please disregard my unsteady camera hand, I need to work on that!
Here is billy in his DJ booth. It is a little hard to see because of how dark it was in there, but the booth is shaped like the front of a 18 wheeler truck. It was really cool! They also have all the outdoor security guards on horseback! I've never seen that before! Here is on of them by the back smoking deck (there is no smoking in the club).
We had a great time watching some of the experienced dancers put their own twist on a line dance. Here is a clip of our favorite dancer breaking it down to No Authority's "Can I Get Your Number". He kind of adds a couple robot moves...very cool!

We really had a great time at Cotton Eyed Joe and recommend that you stop in and dance with our new friends. Check out more pictures on our myspace page!
If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know! --Bobbe

********UPDATE********
Here is a comment from Jackie at Cotton Eyed Joe that I wanted to share with you!

Thank you for all the nice things you said about us. We really enjoyed having you here and thanks for all the cool stuff you send us. I will be sending you a list soon of all the events that are coming here we are booked through December.

Thank you once again.
Jackie

1 comment:

AristoVision said...

Great job, Bobbe! That looks like it was so much fun. I wish i could have tagged along that time. I'm definitely going to have to get out to Knoxville sometime soon now.