THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17TH AND 18TH, 2019—TRAVELING TO KUMAMOTO, JAPAN FOR 31ST COUNTRY GOLD FINAL ENCORE:
So this actually starts yesterday, October 16th. Because this is the last year for Country Gold up at beautiful Mt. Aso, I wanted my “family” to go with me and see what I’ve been doing for the last 31 years of my life. I cashed in all my Delta miles for their flights and of course, could not get them on the flights with me and the artists. They were going to fly SWA to Atlanta on Wednesday night and spend the night there. Then take an early morning flight to LAX with a very short layover and then fly to Tokyo and Kumamoto. Ben and Noel Haggard are flying out of LAX, so it wasn’t all bad.
Throughout the past several months, I’ve called Delta several times and begged to let me change their flights to no avail. I decided to give it one more try yesterday – the day before departure. I talked to the sweetest man ever and he said “no problem”. I was in shock. I asked him if he was sure and he assured me it was no problem but there would be a “change fee”. Turns out that fee was $542 per person times 4 people. Way to expensive for me. Then he asked for my account number and I gave it to him. He said, “Wow!!!. You are almost at 3 million miles flown on Delta. How about we waive that change fee and only charge you 52 cents per person?”. Still can’t believe my luck.
So Zac and Zoe stayed with me last night. I got up at 2 am and got them up at 3:00 am so Frank could take us to the airport. Some of the musicians were already there when we arrived. Zac and Zoe helped me with the check-in and Lindsey and Chris arrived at 4 am. Ashley Campbell, Ben and Noel Haggard and the USAF Band of the Pacific are joining Charlie and the Cannonballs this year. It will be a fantastic concert. I hope we have a huge crowd.
Went into the Delta Lounge and saw my friends and they let me bring in our entire group if they wanted to come in. Flight to Minneapolis was on time and took about 2 hours. We landed and went to the Lounge there for about a 2 hour layover. I heard from Ben and Noel before we departed and they had both landed and found each other. We should land about an hour before them at the Haneda Tokyo airport.
We boarded on time out of Minneapolis and this is one of the newer aircraft with the sliding doors on the “suites” in business class. I could care less about anything other than the fact that my WiFi works great. Chris immediately went to sleep because he only slept 1 hour last night. He didn’t even eat dinner! We all ate and watched movies. Zac and Lindsey are asleep now and Zoe and I are still awake…she is very much like me and Zac is very much like “Boo Chris” (as they call him instead of Uncle Chris!). We have 7 hours to go now so I’m going to “take a nap” and encourage Zoe to do the same.
I don’t think Zac and Zoe went to sleep until about an hour before we were due to land. They slept through breakfast and were pretty tired when we got off the flight. We landed on time and breezed through Immigration. All our luggage arrive and Shoji was there waiting for us. We walked to the ANA counter at the end of the terminal and re-checked all our bags. Ben and Noel’s flight was landing late so I sent everyone to shop and I stayed with their carry on bags and “talked” to Seiya. We communicated for the first time in 31 years – via Google Translate!
Ben and Noel finally arrived and we re-checked their bags and rode the shuttle bus to the Domestic. After clearing security, we had a very long walk to the end of the terminal where our gate was located. We had about an hour before boarding so Chris and I went in search of food. We walked and walked but there were no restaurants….just vending machines with sandwiches.
Our flight was delayed out of Haneda and we finally took off over 30 minutes late. It was a 1 hour and 15 minute flight only the flight attendant came on the intercom and said we were going to have to circle for about 30 minutes due to a thunderstorm in the area. After 45 minutes, the pilot told us we had to divert to Fukuoka! That’s 2 hours from Kumamoto! When we got off the plane, there were agents waiting for us. Our agent handed me train tickets for our group! I had to explain to her that we had 19 people 11 large music cases and 19 suitcases. Not only did they think we could ride the train but expected us to take the subway from the airport to the train station! I asked if a bus could take us and they said there were no buses available at that time of the night.
After about an hour of negotiation, ANA airline agreed to pay for taxis to take us to Kumamoto. They found one “van” taxi for the equipment and we walked across the street to load everything. Only, once we arrived there, they told us the van had gone to fill up with gas. Another 20 minutes later, the van arrived and we loaded all the equipment and two of the Air Force Band personnel onto it. The rest of us had to go stand in a very long taxi line and then the ANA staff had to negotiate with each taxi driver to take us to Kumamoto.
We split up with 3 people to a taxi and Zoe and Shoji rode with me. Zoe slept all the way. Our driver had no idea where Kumamoto was located and kept stopping to call someone for directions.
We all finally arrived at the Mitsui Garden Hotel and our room keys were ready for us. They also had the McDonald’s Big Macs and Chicken Nuggets waiting for us. I guess the hotel got confused on my rooms this year because I had one for Chris, 1 big one with 3 beds and I was supposed to have a “twin”. Only I had 3 beds as well!
I got unpacked and sorted everything for tomorrow and then took a shower. By that time, it was after 2 am and I wanted to dry my hair and be asleep by 2:30 am. Didn’t happen because my hair dryer would not blow hot air. I didn’t want to call Chris or Lindsey and wake them up to borrow theirs. I finally got in bed at 3:30 am!
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19TH, 2019 – SOUND CHECK AT ASPECTA:
Grabbed 4 hours of sleep, dressed and ran downstairs for breakfast with “family and friends”. It is supposed to rain all day and turn cold at Aspecta but the weather report is rarely correct….just like in the USA.
We took the scenic drive up the mountain and arrived exactly on time. Charlie was finishing up his sound check so my group ate lunch and counted in their merchandise with Kayo and Shoji. Zac and Noel have formed a “love/hate” bond that is fun to watch!
Chris, Lindsey and Seiya helped with posting all the “signs” while I worked on the set lists. Sound check ran smoothly and it never rained once! And, it was hot…not cold! We ran through the finale and departed at 5 pm. Only took us 1 ½ hours to drive back to the hotel.
Chris, Lindsey, Zac, Zoe and I walked over to Charlie’s nightclub so Kayo could go with us to the rehabilitation hospital to see Toshiko. My “family” was fading and need sleep and food!
It was so wonderful to see Toshiko and she was SO surprised to see my family. She grabbed Zoe and held onto her and cried and cried. But, she was crying because she was happy. I so wish she could walk again so she could go home. But, at least, the people at the facility seem to be really wonderful and take good care of her. They even rolled her out to the street when we had to leave so she could wave good-bye to us. So hard to leave her!
We found the new “shopping complex” that is located where we used to hold Country Sunshine. There are tons of restaurants up on the 3rd floor and we quickly found a shabu-shabu restaurant. Everybody loved it except Zac and he pretty much just ate the rice. Chris went back to the hotel immediately to “crash” but Lindsey wanted to go by a crepe ice cream shop we had passed on our way to Charlie’s. Unfortunately by the time we got there, it was closed. So we walked down to Baskin Robbins and Zoe and Lindsey got “themed” ice cream. You’ll have to look at my photos on Facebook. While we were in line we met people who were in town from overseas all attending a Santa Claus Convention. They have an event tomorrow at the castle with lots of Mr. and Mrs. Clauses. We told them all about Country Gold but they can’t attend because their event is at the same time.
Got back at the hotel at around 10 pm and finished up lots of emails. Going to bed now. Praying tomorrow will be a beautiful day for Country Gold and that lots of people will attend!
Jude
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20TH, 2019 – COUNTRY GOLD FINAL ENCORE AT MT. ASO JAPAN:
Woke up to a perfectly beautiful day. Warm weather and no forecast for rain. Showered and had breakfast with the family – all except Chris. He really isn’t into the breakfast at the hotel and walks to McDonald’s for a sausage biscuit every day.
We departed at 9:30 am and as we were waiting for everyone to board the bus, Seiya asked me if a man on a bike by our bus was the “chef” from Angelo’s (my favorite Italian Restaurant). It was and we got off and talked to him. Seiya told him my family would be coming for dinner tonight. We departed on time and arrived at around 10:30 am. Busy morning getting everything set up for the press conference, printing set lists, etc. It was obvious even before the first song that there was a much larger crowd this year than in the last two years. Also, the booth selling Country Gold Merchandise was completely sold out before the concert started!
Concert kicked off with speeches by Carolyn Glassman from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. She attended last year as well and is such a nice lady. After her, John Taylor – the new Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate Fukuoka made a speech. Yuki was with him and she has been a big help to me this year.
Charlie and the Cannonballs began their set and the press conference started downstairs. There were 4 journalist interviewing this year and we finished in around 40 minutes. Each artist also spends 1 hour in the merchandise booth signing autographs.
Pacific Trends Band of the U.S.Air Force of the Pacific Asia joined us for the third year. These men and women are absolutely fantastic. A few of them have been with us every year but some were here for the first time. It’s a great experience for them but also adds so much to our event!
Ashley Campbell performed next and the audience loved her, too. I’m not sure she even had to sing anything to impress them because the Japanese love tall blonde women! She sang a lot of her dad’s (Glen Campbell) songs but also sang some of her own.
The presentation of the plaques to all the sponsors was next on the schedule. I brought Chris, Lindsey, Zac and Zoe on stage and introduced them. Zac and Zoe said Konnichi-wa and stole the show. LOL.
Zac and Zoe made some new friends in Japan and spent most of the day playing with them in a field behind the venue. Mt. Aso was letting us know it was alive and well today. There was a huge plume of white smoke billowing out the entire concert. Just as it was at the very first Country Gold, there was a fine film of ash covering everything. Someone told me that it had erupted last week, but erupted water and not lava. The ash had covered everything including our stage. But, fortunately, it rained a couple of days ago and washed everything away. I really thought we were going to have another eruption today but at least it would have been water as well because the smoke was white. Black smoke means lava!
Ben and Noel finished out the concert and the country fans loved them! They sang a lot of Merle’s songs but interspersed a few of their own as well. They are so talented and this was the perfect ending to Country Gold.
All day I was afraid I was going to cry when it was over. It’s hard to believe that after 31 years, I’ll never walk around in the that venue again and never see the thousands of people enjoying Country Gold at the base of an active volcano! But a reporter told me earlier in the day that Charlie had announced that he will have a concert downtown next year with one female artist and he wrote in the program that the title of the concert would be Country Angel! That definitely helped me hold back on the tears knowing that I will come back in 2020. Kumamoto is my second home and Charlie and his family and all my friends over here mean the world to me.
I spent a lot of time walking around through the crowd today and everywhere I went, I was stopped by people who knew me because they have been to Nashville with Charlie or because they have been coming to Country Gold for years and years. One lady was crying and I figured out that she had met me in 1988 when I was on tour with Pat Boone and she LOVES Pat Boone! Another man met me many, many years ago when Charlie performed in San Antonio!
Everyone gathered in the Green Room for the closing Kampai (toast) and we loaded the buses for the 1 ½ hour drive back to Kumamoto City. Zac has fallen in love with Noel and they verbally “sparred” for most of the ride back.
My family and I rushed over to Angelo’s for dinner tonight and my friend Hiromi joined us. My “gift” for everyone this year was a small round “compact”. When it opens, a hairbrush pushes out and a mirror is on the opposite side. Then on the back, there is a compartment with a small sewing kit. It was a HUGE hit.
Going to bed now as I have to get up at 5 am. Will fly to Tokyo Haneda with everyone and then my family and I will go into Tokyo for a couple of days. We’ll go to the Robot Restaurant tomorrow night and then Disney Sea and maybe Disney Tokyo on Tuesday. One of my dearest, long-time friends who was the AFE Coordinator for Europe for a long time is now at Yokota Air Base. He is bringing his son down to play “tourists” with us.
Jude
MONDAY, OCTOBER 21ST, 2019 – DEPARTING KUMAMOTO:
Lobby call at 7 am for everyone but me. I had to be downstairs at 6:30 pm to get everything handled with the check out. Everyone was on time and we drove for 45 minutes to the airport. Then it was the usual “nightmare” flying out of a domestic airport! We were originally scheduled to fly a later flight on ANA but that flight cancelled about a month ago. I “thought” we were flying the earlier flight on ANA but it was actually one of their partner airlines – Solaseed Air. Never heard of that one before!!! Ashley stayed over in Japan to sightsee with her friend for a few days and her guitar player flew to New Zealand where he is from. Lindsey, Chris, Zac and Zoe and I are staying over in Tokyo for a couple of days. So, I was checking Noel in for DFW, Ben in for LAX, and the 3 musicians in for Nashville.
We told the lady at the checking counter that we had 3 large guitars and would need the boxes for them. That seemed to throw her into a panic. She left the counter and when she wasn’t back in 15 minutes, I told Charlie to please see what was going on. She finally came back and everyone got their bags tagged. Then the bags had to be taken through a scanner. Everyone who had to check a guitar will have to pick their bags up at the domestic terminal when we land and take it to the international terminal to check it in again. My family has to pick up all their bags as well since we are staying in Tokyo. I left them in the domestic terminal to eat some lunch while I went to the international terminal with the group. Ticket counters for international flights don’t open until 3 hours prior to departure. We were able to print out their boarding passes at the kiosk and then it was only about 25 minutes before the gate opened. We got in the Priority Line because I was going to “try” to check them in with my Priority Status. Some agents were already checking passports and I tried to explain to them that I wasn’t flying today but had 3 Million Miles on Delta. He did not care! He threw us out of line. The coach line was already very long and as we were standing there, I happened to check Ben’s boarding pass. He is Priority!!! I went back to the Priority Lane but asked the nice lady there this time instead of the rude man. She came with me to the coach line and interviewed each person and gave them their security sticker. She said if they wanted to carry on their guitars, then they did not have to go to the counter!
Noel was still missing so I waited for him with his guitar. When he showed up, we found the nice lady again and she interviewed him. He decided to carry on his guitar so he would not have to stand in line for check in. I said good-bye and headed over to the International Terminal.
Can’t say enough about these wonderful entertainers – so fantastic on stage and off stage. Ashley, Ben, Noel, the Air Force Band and all the musicians were truly delightful to work with and the Japanese fans said it was the perfect closing concert for Country Gold at Mt. Aso!
As a side note….our “family mini-vacation” to Tokyo was quite interesting. We were not aware that the entire week is a “holiday” because the new Emperor is being “unveiled”! Lots of important diplomats from around the world are in Tokyo. The first “strange” thing we encountered was the fact that all the trash cans in the airports were sealed with plastic. A sign was on them saying they were closed for security concerns and to give trash to one of the cleaning staff who would be walking around the airport. Japan is one of the cleanest countries in the world but it is almost impossible to find a trash can on their streets. People just carry their trash around with them! Lindsey was checking on the bus from the airport to the Sheraton Disney while I was getting everyone checked in. The bus and train are the least expensive and fastest options. But, we can’t take our large suitcases on the train and the bus was going to take 3 hours (normally a 1 hour ride) because of all the closings for the Emperors Procession which was taking place on Tuesday! We decided to take the more expensive option of an UBER (still less expensive than a taxi) but it still took us almost 2 hours for a 30 minute drive normally. The driver was really nice and spoke good English. The challenge was getting 5 huge suitcases and carry on bags in his van!
The hotel is really nice and perfect location to walk across the street to take the monorail to Disney Tokyo and Disney Sea. Our room had 4 beds and Chris’s room had two beds. The next “bad” news is the fact that the rain prediction is 100% all day Tuesday – our only day to go to Disney.
My friend – George DeGrella – from Yokota Air Base took his 8 year old son – Luke – out of school for a couple of days and met us to go to the Robot Restaurant and Disney Sea with us. He hit it off immediately with Zac and Zoe. It took us an hour and a half to take trains from the Sheraton to the Robot Restaurant. But, the show did not disappoint. Kids loved it!
Tuesday morning it was raining as predicted and the wind was also blowing really hard. Our thought was at least the park won’t be crowded. Wrong. It was packed and lines for the most popular rides were 3 hours long! We had no option but to buy ponchos and head to the park. We rode a couple of rides and got a fast pass for another ride and then headed back to the hotel to change into dry clothes and shoes. There is a nice mall that is one monorail stop from the hotel, so we went there for lunch. After lunch we went back to the park and the chance of rain was diminishing by the hour. By around 5 o’clock, the rain had stopped but the lines were still incredibly long. We left the park around 6 pm and had dinner at the Mall again. Zac and Zoe have gotten in some quality “gaming” time each night with Luke!
The concierge at the hotel told us we should leave at 10 am to be sure we arrived at the airport by noon. Since there was no longer any traffic from the ceremonies, we arrived at the terminal at 10:30 am! Everyone walked around and shopped and ate lunch until departure time. Sitting in the Minneapolis airport on a 5 hour layover now. Ready to get home tonight. Wondering how the kids are going to do with their jet lag and school tomorrow!
Jude