It has taken me a week to feel finally ready to sit and document in detail my night with Nicotine Dolls. I hope y’all are ready for this.

Saturday March 25th, 2023. I met my sister (B1) at her house around 2:45pm then we headed towards Charlotte (after making a slight detour to see the sweetest lil ol’ man pup for a quick couple of minutes). The drive to Charlotte wasn’t very eventful. We listened to Nicotine Dolls and had some good conversation. 🙂

B1 and I have lots of experience road-trippin’ – she’s my OG #1 concert buddy! We were supposed to see Sister Hazel together back in January but something came up on my end so B1 took her oldest in my place. <3 Anyway…

We get to Charlotte and find our way to the parking deck that’s right next to the venue. Easy peasy! We get out and walk a bit because I wanted to confirm where the venue was before we went in search of food.

Found the venue! I saw a van that I assumed was the van the band was traveling in parked right outside the venue. We walked in front of the theatre and I took a couple of pics. How cool is this?!

Venue: located. Now in search of NOMS. We walked towards where we thought food would be and we were wrong… lol. It’s not a B1 & Jenn trip if we don’t get lost, right? So I pull out my phone and open Google Maps to see what’s nearby. I told her a few of the choices and she said she didn’t care, so I picked one… we walked over to it (wasn’t far at all from where we were, and really close to the theatre).

Jack Beagle’s – I had never heard of them but it looked nice! We sat and looked over the menu, and I also looked at their drink menu. They had a drink called the Gooby Snack (Malibu [my favorite], melon liqueur, and pineapple juice) and I needed this in my life. It was actually quite delicious! For food I got The Firehouse bbq sandwich (without the slaw and jalepeno) with the house chips, and B1 got the cheesesteak and chips. This food really hit the spot!

We finished up around 5:30pm and headed back over to the venue to get in line.

Get in line? Well, we started the line. We were the very first ones to actually line up. 🙂 (Which was my hope all along…) B1 and I talked some while other people filed in line behind us. I saw a Dr. Bacon sticker and had to take a picture of it. I explained to B1 that I had seen them a few times in Greensboro, and that they’re friends with some of my musician friends so that was pretty cool.

I hear the couple behind us say “Is that them?! That’s them!” And I turned and saw that same van from earlier. I spoke up and said that I saw that van outside the venue earlier when we first got here, but this time I saw Merritt driving and Abel in the passenger seat – undeniably the band! Sam hops out and says to all of us “Are you all waiting in line?!” like he couldn’t believe somebody would be lined up a full hour before doors opened for the show… the couple that was behind us asked if they could get some pics with the band and my nerves went into overdrive… Y’all don’t understand how much I love this band and how excited I was that I would get to witness this show with my own two eyeballs and earballs. But holy crap Sam and the whole freaking band were right there, mere feet away from me. I just kinda smiled but shut down internally. LOL! When the band finished saying hi and taking a few pics and were walking away, the couple was talking about how cool that was and I spoke up saying I was scared to death to ask for a pic. They laughed and said “but they’re so nice! Look the whole band is right there, when are you gonna get this chance again?” I still shook my head and ‘noped’ for the next few minutes. (Dork.)

The doors open at almost exactly 7:00pm and B1 and I go through security, get our tickets scanned, then practically rush over to the stage to get our spots right up front at the barrier and pretty centered of the stage. The couple from the line came in right behind us and stood to our left. I noticed the merch table at the back and the wife of the couple went over to check it out while B1 went to the bathroom. I (getting out of my comfort zone) introduced myself to the husband (Jeff/Geoff/Jeffrey/Geoffrey? I can’t remember if it was Jeff or Jeffrey and I’m sorry) and had remembered his wife telling Sam they traveled up from South Carolina so I asked him where in SC they were from. Dude seemed like he didn’t want to talk to me much so I dropped the conversation after that. When his wife came back I introduced myself to her (Rachel) and chatted for a few minutes. We basically agreed that the four of us would work together to ensure we kept these spots right at the front. (Hahaha)

The opener for the show was a lovely person by the name of Carly Taich. What an amazing voice! She’s from the Asheville, NC area which makes me happy, because AVL isn’t that far from home and I can make plans to go see her again soon.

Sidenote: this is one thing I love about going to live music shows. You can hear new bands and musicians that you literally have never heard of before and find ones that you really like! Of course the opposite can happen and you find some that just make you want to cover your ears… but I’ve had more positive experiences than negative. In fact, there are many times I have gone to shows JUST to hear the opening band and not the headliner! But I digress…

Carly blew me away with her voice. Her lyrics are wonderful and I really can’t wait to listen to some more of her songs. That’s all I’m gonna say about her (until I see her again).

Now to the main event… Nicotine Dolls take the stage!

It’s so funny because Sam comes on stage wearing some sunglasses, which he tells us belong to Merritt. He kept them on for the first song, Should Have Danced. I was going to record practically all of the songs, but decided that I would rather just BE THERE in the moment, singing my heart out, dancing, and taking it all in. <3 (That doesn’t mean I didn’t record anything, I was just selective about what I got.)

Second song was Hands, which was so great to hear live. Third song was 2 Weaks and woah buddy does that one slap! One of my favorite Nicotine Dolls songs ever (well, up to this point in life) and hearing it live was just *chef’s kiss*.

Then they stopped to do a little talking… telling us about their tour-mantra. Yes, there are some songs that we will know. But there’s going to be some songs they play during the show that we don’t know. And when it comes to those songs, (I think they wanted us to say…) “We don’t know that sh!t” (hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa). Next song was called Untapped, which is one of the new ones. I’ve heard parts of this on the Nicotine Dolls TikTok page, so I knew some of it… but it’s incredible.

Wouldn’t ya know, Sam broke a string during this one! The band had an impromptu meeting on stage, then you see John literally sprint out of the room when Sam comes back to the mic to talk. He says they are gonna play a song, but they’re not gonna play the whole thing. This is the song that introduced me to the Dolls, believe it or not. This cover/mashup was on Tiktok and it led me to their YouTube which had me hooked. Listened to all of their stuff and became a bit obsessed. Anway, enjoy the version from the show…

Now to be fair, on the setlist (which will be discussed later) it says “Cover” for this part of the set, so I’m really curious what song they were originally supposed to do in this spot. (Sam, John, Merritt, Abel – anyone want to give me the scoop?)

Back to the show… the next song we got was Till We Both Say which is an absolute masterpiece. Next song was A Real House which is a new one, but again I’ve heard some of it on TikTok.

The next song in the lineup was Slip – and y’all… this is another new one that I saw a bit of on Tiktok and holy moly guacamole ravioli… it’s so incredible. I’m prediciting that this is going to be the favorite off of the new Nicotine Dolls album (whenever we get it). I wish, I wish, I WISH that I would have recorded this one. I did get the next song though, which was a cover of Go West’s King of Wishful Thinking.

I loved that song back in the day, and I’ve seen a couple videos of Sam covering it on Tiktok. It was great to see it live! Next up we got another new one called How Do You Love Me.

Again, I had seen pieces of this one online and this will probably be my second favorite from whatever new album they decide to release. <3 The lyrics just get me. They’re incredible songwriters, if you couldn’t tell.

The next song in the lineup is listed as 30 Somehow on the setlist. I did record this one but I didn’t upload it. I’m not sure if this is a new song or a cover song (I assume it’s not a cover because they didn’t list it as a cover?), or if this is a way older song I have never heard… but wow. I may upload it later on… I just know there was a point where Sam sang the wrong lyrics then restarted and I don’t want that living on the internets in infamy. (We already have the oopsie of restarting Till We Both Say instead of going into How Do You Love Me ((which I do have that recorded also, but didn’t upload that part)), so I didn’t want more oopsies on the interwebs.)

After that, we got Upset the Neighbors which is such a fun song!!! Loved singing that one loud and doing a little dancey-dance. Last song was The Madness which in my opinion is kind of a weird song to end on… like why not reverse those two in the list? End on a high note? But I digress (again)…

Then the guys start coming off stage. Rachel got John’s set list (I believe). Then Merritt gave his to someone to my right. Rachel saw another set list (Sam’s) still sitting on the stage and as Merritt is coming down the steps, she asks him if she can have it. He turned around and got it for her – then she gave it to ME. :-O I got a setlist from the show!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t believe it!

The guys did have two other songs listed as their encore songs, so they came back a couple of minutes later to give us the encore.

Some guy had been yelling “Freebird!” during most of the show, and when the guys came back dude was still yelling it. Sam acknowledged him and told him that he wasn’t going to play it. I said to B1 that I was going to tell Sam about the Freebird story from one of our Bain Mattox concert experiences and she laughed because she understood… and agreed.

So after addressing the Freebird situation, Sam starts asking about couples that have been together the longest. Two different couples got chosen to come up by the stage in front of the barrier, one had been together for 4 years and the other for 10 years. The band did a new song called Doubled which broke me inside and made me cry. Definitely not a song that you want to hear when you’re single…

After that we got the true last song of the night, What Makes You Sad. This is the song that Sam performed on America’s Got Talent. This song was featured in the TV series The Good Doctor. This song is blowing up for the band and I couldn’t be more excited for them! After they sang, they let the entire venue know that we could meet them at the merch table in the back. Once they got off stage and the lights came up, the ENTIRE VENUE full of people got in line to talk to them.

Cue my anxiety!! I told B1 we were gonna step to the side and let the line die down… which we did. We waited and waited and waited for the line to go down. One of the venue staff came over to us and asked “Hey weren’t you two the first in line?” and we said yes. He gave us a poster (I let B1 have it since I had the setlist). That was so nice of him to give that to us!!

The line starts thinning out and I finally feel OK enough to get in line. We’re getting closer and closer to the guys and all of a sudden I see Abel walking out. I guess he had enough of socializing and wanted to get away… so I didn’t get to meet him. It’s a shame, he’s a very talented drummer and I really wanted to meet him! But it was fine, I’ll get another chance someday.

I liked being at the end of the line because I wouldn’t feel rushed when talking to the guys… but my anxiety started getting the best of me. Holy crap I’m gonna get to talk to them. I’m gonna goof this up, I swear. Why am I such a wreck? They don’t know me, I’m sure they’ll never even think of me again after this but I’m gonna remember this for the rest of my life. Don’t mess this up Jenn!

Wouldn’t you know it – a couple got in line behind us and that threw my anxiety into overdrive. Ugh. I was originally planning to get a t-shirt and/or a poster, but I couldn’t focus. I told myself I’ll just go online and get one of the newer designs of t-shirts (and I still will do that). B1 had the guys sign the venue poster that she was given. The guys seemed really happy to see the venue poster, I’m sure they had spent all of the night signing the one they were selling so that was a welcome change. Of course I had them sign the set list I got.

John was first, and he signed it in purple sharpie which was awesome. Then Merritt signed, then Will (keyboard) and then Sam. When Sam saw the setlist he looks at us and says “What was your favorite song?” I pointed to Doubled and said “Well, this one made me very sad and had me crying, so I don’t appreciate that one“… then I pointed to Slip and said “But Slip… that’s my absolute favorite. I love it.” And then Sam drew a heart next to it. (Y’all! I can’t… I can’t stop smiling.)

I asked if we could get a picture, and he said “Sure!” then we walked over to the side. The rest of the band (minus Abel) came over and we took a few pics. Then B1 jumped into some of the pics. As I was thanking them and turning to go, B1 reminds me… “Freebird.”

“Oh! Right. Sam, so the next time somebody is annoyingly yelling for Freebird…”

“Yes!?”

“Well, all you have to do is this” **flips bird** “and tell them, ‘Here you go!'”

The guys laughed at that… some of them really enjoyed that idea. I think Sam thought it was funny but probably didn’t think he could actually do that to the audience, then I felt like a moron for even bringing this up. ((Y’all, I flipped off Sam Ceiri. I don’t think I’m ever going to recover from that.))

I was still very anxious and rushed out the door. We got back to my car and I drove the hour plus to B1’s house, but on the way of course we go through a license check. Was quick and painless though. After dropping B1 off around 1am, I made it home about 15 minutes later. Got yelled at by the dog (she’s very vocal), got hugs and kisses from her also, changed into my comfy clothes then watched the videos that I had taken.

What an amazing night. I really, truly can’t wait to see Nicotine Dolls again. <3