Flora-Bama Jama

Our weekend was filled with sand, sun, bushwackers, and Kenny Chesney on the beach.  Does it get more summer-y than that?!  Saturday was the Kenny Chesney concert at the Flora-Bama (nicknamed Flora-Bama Jama!)  We knew it was going to be a long day and tried to mentally and physically prepare but nothing could really prepare us for what was to come!

First a little background:  Kenny Chesney decided to take the year off from touring to work on his new album.  Then at the last minute he decided to do a free concert on the beach at the Flora-Bama.  And write a song about Flora-Bama.  The Flora-Bama is a crazy bar located right on the Florida/Alabama state line (read more here and here and here).  It's a bar that has bras hanging from the ceiling and people travel from all around each year to toss a mullet.  In other words, it is always a ridiculously fun, redneck time!  Of course, everyone wanted in on this experience and tickets were gone in 9 minutes.  The Flora-Bama is only an hour away (and like 2 miles from our old place in Perdido Key!) so we knew we could not miss it!

The Flora-Bama was set to open at 10am and the concert started at 5pm.  We woke up early to make it to the bus by 9.  Not knowing what to expect, we were pleasantly surprised to hop right on a bus and head straight to the Flora-Bama.  When we got there, we waited in line for a little over an hour to get in but were in by 11.  Temperatures were already well over 90 degrees with ridiculous humidity so we knew we needed to make a game plan to survive the day.  (People were passing out constantly throughout the day)  We decided to set up camp inside of the Flora-Bama and hang out in the air conditioning until it got a little closer to show time.  We clearly were not the only ones who thought of this, as the place was wall-to-wall packed with people.  

We hung around inside until around 2 then went out to the beach for a while and hung out in the Gulf.  By this point, EVERYWHERE was packed.  People and boats and beers in every single direction with barely a cloud in the sky.  It was simply insane!  (They said later there were over 40,000 people in attendance!)  

We nabbed a close spot just before Kenny came on.  He was awesome, playing all his hits and mixing in some new stuff.  He started off with "Flora-Bama" so of course the crowd went insane.  They actually filmed the entire concert and it will be playing on CMT in November so I'm looking forward to re-living it then! 

Photo courtesy of the Flora-Bama Facebook page

It's really difficult to explain how many people there were there.  The picture above just barely do it justice!  I was actually really impressed with how well the concert was run.  The Flora-Bama is located on a two lane road that backs up on any given Saturday.  With that said, we hit very minimal traffic in either direction.  The temperatures were ridiculously hot and people were passing out right and left but they were giving out free bottled water the entire concert as well as having the fire department spray the crowds with hoses.  Free bottles of water is extremely generous and we took full advantage.