shaniasupersite.com
Summerside woman gets thrill of a lifetime at Shania Twain concert
The
Journal Pioneer (Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada)
By Ryan Cooke
July 22, 2013
Barb Strongman holds the book she bought and the
top hat she caught at a recent Shania Twain
concert in Las Vegas. After
catching the hat, Strongman got a special invitation from the
songstress.
Being escorted out of a Las Vegas hotel by security guards doesn’t typically lead to positive results, but for Barb Strongman, it was the experience of a lifetime.
As soon as she heard about her husband Barry’s meetings in Las Vegas, Barb went online to find tickets for Shania Twain’s Caesars Palace production.
She’s been a fan of Twain’s for years, and has followed the Canadian country icon’s ups and downs markedly.
“I just love her,” she said. “Her music, her story. Everything.”
Barb managed to get seats near the stage, on the outside of the row (“Barry enjoys his foot room,” she chuckled) with a great view of the stage.
As the concert went on, Twain got more and more involved with the crowd, walking up and down the aisles, shaking hands and giving hugs.
Every time she came down into the crowd, however, she was nowhere near the Strongmans.
“Oh shoot,” Barb recalls saying. “She’s not going to come anywhere near us.”
After returning to the stage, Twain began playing a song dedicated to her late mother, someone who had a large impact on her life.
“I started getting really emotional,” Barb said. “My mother passed away about two years ago, so it struck pretty close to home.”
Twain played a set of slower-paced songs, and went offstage briefly. Before long, she was back out in an elaborate, all-black trench coat-type outfit, complete with a top hat and went back to her ’90s rocking country tunes.
Before long, the coat was stripped away to reveal a black dress, and the top hat came flying into the audience.
It started out on a low trajectory, sweeping over the centre of the crowd and curling to the side. Barb didn’t stand up or reach out. She just simply raised her hand.
“I didn’t even see it coming,” she said. “My husband said he saw the hat curl out over the crowd, like a Frisbee, and then start to tail over towards us. And then my hand just shot up and I caught it.”
Sitting there in her glee, Strongman forgot all about missing out on hugging Twain during the show.
Then came a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to see a big, burly security guard standing over her.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Can you come with me?”
Strongman immediately got defensive.
“My first thought was he was going to ask for the hat back. There was no way I was giving it up.”
Reluctantly, she got up out of her seat to follow the guard.
“Is there anybody else with you?” He asked her.
At this point she began to think maybe she had won something, like an autographed picture or t-shirt.
Seeing the confused look on her face, the guard spoke up.
“Didn’t you read the inside of the hat?”
As she turned the hat over in her hands, Strongman read an invitation hand-written by Twain to meet her backstage after the concert.
Immediately, her suspicion and wonder turned into sheer glee.
“I was so excited,” she said. “I was like a little girl at Christmas.”
The security guard led her out of the theatre, communicating over his headset with his coworkers.
“I’ve got her,” he said. “We’re on our way out now.”
From the theatre, the Strongmans were led to the lobby, where a different guard took them. They then went down floor-by-floor, being handed off to different guards along the way, until they were somewhere below the stage.
“Wait here for a minute,” a guard advised them. “The show is almost over.”
He told Barb and Barry to take all the time they wanted with her, and insisted she didn’t mind meeting fans.
After finishing her final encore, Shania Twain, the all-time best selling female country artist, walked through the doors and met with the Strongmans.
“She was so nice,” Barb said. “You could tell she was in no rush to go anywhere.”
Upon introducing themselves, Barb told her how they were also Canadian, and they began talking about Prince Edward Island.
Twain told them how she had been to P.E.I. once for a gig, before her career took off. Barb told her about the Cavendish Beach Music Festival, something Twain seemed very interested in.
They exchanged small talk for 15 minutes and took pictures together before Twain headed to her dressing room and the Strongmans were escorted out again.
It’s 15 minutes Barb says she’ll never forget.
“She was so beautiful, inside and out,” she said. “For all she’s gone through, to spend time meeting with fans like that is incredible.”
The way she handled herself was indicative of her roots, Strongman said.
“It was an incredibly proud moment to be Canadian.”