My experience with Karen Johnston, Lori, Sharon & Neal

[oohmylove]

Ok, I've told this story to everyone and a lot of other Stevie fans/Facebook friends were around when this happened, so they can totally corroborate this.

My boyfriend and I got tickets to the FM 2013 show in Charlotte. As usual during the summer, Charlotte is hot, muggy, and extremely humid. We only live about 45 minutes from uptown but we decided that we would make a little day trip out of it and we booked a room at the Ritz Carlton.

The show went great. After the show, this is what happened:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz2yrJitqtA

So after a "semi" meeting with Stevie, we made the arduous 2-block trek to the Carlton to hit up the bar before it closed at 1 am . When we walked into the lobby, there was a buzz of people all walking around. At first we didn't think about it (the show was sold out so I figured a lot of people had come to town for it and booked rooms) and we walked to the elevators to go up to our room. There were seven or eight police standing by all the elevators and they were telling everyone that the elevators were temporarily out of order. They told us where the stairs were (it's a huge hotel) and a few of us walked through the bar and restaurant toward one of the staircases. A few police walked by and everyone heard on their radios, "Talent is on the move, clear the halls." And then we saw it. In the parking deck (you could see it from the glass doors on the back of the building) there were 10 or 12 black SUV's and we realized Fleetwood Mac was staying in our hotel! The police and hotel security had shut down the elevators until they got to their rooms.

Anyway, we went up to our room and showered and changed clothes and went down to the bar. As soon as we exited the elevator we turned left to walk down the corridor to the bar and low and behold, there was Karen and Lori sitting in one of the round corner booths having drinks. I tried to remain calm and sat down at the bar and ordered whatever the first thing that came to my mind.

Karen was wearing a white shirt and jeans and Lori had changed into an all black outfit. Lori was messing with her iPhone and Karen was talking on the phone. They were laughing and looking around and admiring the ceiling (it's silver and blue and quite beautiful).

After about 20 minutes, Sharon and Neal Haywood (sp?) came down to the bar and joined them. Then I really started to freak out. It was around 12:30 and the bar started emptying and the "Stevie crew" started gathering their things to leave. I turned around in my stool and said, "You guys, the show was GREAT!" Neal and Sharon smiled and said "thank you" and Neal even came over to shake my hand. Lori and Karen hadn't said a word or even acknowledged me, so I said, "Lori you look great!" and, honest to God, she just threw her hair back and completely ignored me. Karen looked at me and didn't crack a smile or utter a word. I could tell Lori was a little embarrassed and she just smiled and waved and walked away.

They left the bar and the bartender looked at me and said, "Ouch, that had to hurt." He then told us that FM had reserved almost all the 18th floor and that one of the front desk people had told him that the people who checked in for FM were incredibly rude and demanded that no one else stay on that floor. Not sure if it was true, but that's what he said.

Anyway, sorry for the long story. Lori and Karen were complete bitches to me, but Sharon and Neal were so nice. I told Neal that my favorite song on IYD was "New Orleans" and he said, "Right on!"