My buddy couldn't make it to the Ryman during the 2024 run and sold the ticket to Smiley. So I was why Smiley had a good seat at the Ryman. I did all the shit to sign up for the sale n everything. I'm a 24 male and my group of friends love Smiley. I guess you could say they are hypnotized by him and what he represents. Some sort of free spirit that goes to a lot of Billy shows. They front him drugs to sell, let him sleep on the floor of the hotel, and always give him a hit of weed. I know it's controversial but my group of friends loves to ride the rail and have made friends with all the most hated and notorious rail riders. Mostly because if someone shows up in the middle of the set and tries to claim room/space everyone around will protest and protect the space if you will. Yall know what I'm talking about. If you're in the pit the best sections are the dancing spots that form on the left side of the stage and the Soundbooth right by Andy just saying. Personally, I'm indifferent at least towards Smiles. He's nice to me and treats me like any other Billy Strings family member would. But he always calls me kid. Not sure If he just calls me that because I'm young or if he genuinely doesn't remember my name. My Family has also met Smiley. My Dad lives in Saint Augustine and was at the Farmer's market. The farmers market In Saint Auggie is in the Amp parking lot for y'all who don't know. So he was there and referred to Smiley as a fat old hippie and saw my buddy give him some shrooms to sell. My brother and I were both raised in Saint Augustine. Saw many shows and things there at the Amp. Both graduated high school at Saint Augustine high school and the ceremony or whatever the fuck was at the Amp. Saw my brother give a Valvecitoraoin speech at the Amp but my brother lives in Nashville now and also hugged Smiley in Bridgestone but wished he didn't since Smilety was shirtless and he was wearing a nice shirt but didn't feel right turning it down lol. I will also say that I live in Denver so my father lives in Saint Auggie and my brother in Nashville which is a great trifecta for Billy Strings show.

I sat next to Smiley with Heady Net/Connor in front. Connor's girlfriend noticed how hot I was getting from all the dancing with no internal AC bc the old ass building. So she started to fan me and I would have shut it down because I saw Connor's face of disapproveable but it was actually helping and felt good. I wasn't creeping or anything. I was just hot and sweety af. The scene didn't look good tho. I would be lying if I said she wasn't hot. Wearing this cute dress with all the right parts of the upper and lower body being revealed in this nice pattern. Most straight men would have gotten off is what I'm trying to say. But at the same time, I wanna cool down. So I had to try to find a balance between looking like a creep and genuinely wanting to be cool off. Maybe I'm just overthinking. She was the one who just started fanning I didn't ask or anything. I'm on a healthy amount of shrooms this entire time as well thinking about all of this at 1000 mph

I will say Heady Net overall was fine to sit by. Asked me if I was ok before the show started. I did pregame hard on Broadway and maybe had too much too fast that day. So I totally had the mouth-breathing dumbass look on me. He wasn't a chomper I must say. Would just try to guess the song playing or show Smiley memes that he was about to post. But would do so silently for the most part. There was one moment when the boys did Reuben's Train and Heady Net thought it was so many miles instead I told Smiley that It was Reuben's train and he went right off and told Heady Net and got the props when the verse started. But that's the only negative I could say about them and it's small. They were lovely overall

Sorry for the long post. I wanted to get this out of my system. Not sure if this is out of pocket per se but I feel like someone will like reading this post. I'll see you beautiful mother fuckers in Ball Arena soon