*THIS CONTEST HAS ENDED*

That’s right, its time for another giveaway. This time we have some WWE tickets and swag that one lucky person will get their mitts on. This will be similar to our previous giveaways in that we will randomly choose a winner from all those who entered. Now for what we are giving away…

One lucky winner will snag him or herself two tickets to the upcoming WWE Summerslam event on July 11. In addition to that, they will receive two extra-large WWE T-shirts, a Wrestlemania XXIV sack pack and a WWE slinky (everyone loves a slinky right?).

Follow the simple steps below in order to enter yourself into the drawing for the giveaway:

- Leave a comment on this post

- In your comment, tell us your name as a wrestler. It could be something as simple as another person’s name (sort of like a stage name) or could be similar to a title like The Waffler.

- Be sure to leave the comment using the appropriate email address for us to contact you at if you are the winner. Choose one that you use and check frequently

The giveaway will end at 5:00pm EST on Wednesday, July 9. After we lock it down, we will take all the entries and run them through our super-awesome-state of the art-crazy-monkey operated-random-post comment-picker-machine and determine a winner. The catch (if you can call it that) is that we have a smart monkey. If he detects that someone has entered more than once then not only will they be disqualified, but they might open their front door and find a heaping pile of rotten banana peels. No one wants that, trust me, so be sure to enter ONLY ONCE.

Now, one more thing. This one is important… GOOD LUCK!

In a little over a week downtown will be filled with people enjoying the July 4th festivities. Clear Channel is presenting an event in the back of Rupp Arena is the Cox Street Parking Lot called Red, White & Boom. Read the rest of this entry »

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has made lots of news lately for his innovative ways to release music and interactivity with the Nine Inch Nails fan base. In line with their recent generosity (releasing a full album for free online), Nine Inch Nails has released some media (desktop wallpapers, buddy icons, posters, etc.) for their upcoming Lights In The Sky Over North America 2008 tour that will be at Rupp Arena on August 31st. I thought people may be interested in downloading the PDF of the tour poster. You can either download the whole extras pack, or click on the image below to download just the poster.

What is even more exciting is that the free downloads don’t stop there. Nine Inch Nails released a tour EP that you can download for free on their site. It features a Nine Inch Nails song off their newest album as well as a song by the bands that are opening for them around the country at various venues. It is a great way to listen to the opening talent and get a feel for their sound before seeing them on stage. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a band only to fully appreciate them a month after I saw them. With this, if you like their music, then you could listen to them more and have an understanding of them already when you see them in concert. Click on the below image of the EP album art and it will direct you to the Nine Inch Nails site where you can download it for free.

If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet because you are in question about the show, let me give you some insight. Nine Inch Nails is just as visually appealing and innovative as they are socially innovative online. Their show in 2006 was absolutely stunning and had some of the coolest stage lighting and effects that I have ever seen. I hope everyone is able to go and experience it for themselves.

This past Saturday the Lexington Horseman squared off against the Albany Conquest. The game was excellent, from start to finish. There were plenty of exciting plays such as last second touchdowns, interceptions and a safety. Coach Mike Harmon had this to say about the game (from the Lexington Horsemen Website):

“It was very exciting tonight,” Horsemen head coach Mike Harmon said. “There was definitely no quit in either of the teams. Both teams needed a victory because we were both on losing streaks. It showed in some respects and we still made some mistakes, but, all-in-all, it was a decent effort tonight.”

With a minute left, the Horsemen were only ahead by one touchdown and the Conquest had the ball. The Horsemen defense made a clutch play and sacked the quarterback in the endzone getting a safety and extending the lead by 2 more points. Albany almost got another touchdown but was denied from a penalty. I had ole trusty camera with me at the game and took a lot of photos which can be found up on our Flickr site in the Albany Conquest set. Below are four of the photos that I took of the game.

If you were at the game and took photos then we would love to see them. Send us an email and either attach the photos or link us to them. There are only a two more Horsemen homegames left in the season, both in July, so if you haven’t had a chance to come and see them then you should do your best to come. If you are not a member of our First in Line club then you may want to join now since we are working on some exciting promotional things for the remaining Horsemen games. The tickets are cheap, the seats are great, and the games are very exciting. See you on July 12 when they face off against the Green Bay Blizzard.

About a week ago Rupp Arena hosted it’s second Mixed Martial Arts event this year. This time around it was the XFC Salute to the Armed Forces. Although the stands weren’t filled, there were definitely a lot more people in attendance at this event than the last MMA event on March 7. It is no surprise that Mixed Martial Arts is one of the fastest growing sports right now. Although Kentucky may be a bit behind the trend, it does seem to be catching on here as well.

From the viewpoint of an average person, not ‘in the know’ about the sport, the fights seemed much more exciting this time around. There were a lot of body drops, some extremely effective holds and people that left the ring with more than their ego bruised. As the sport gets more steam (more so in KY), it is attracting serious athletes, some military, others experienced martial artists.

I was on hand (or rather in seat) with camera at-the-ready snapping as many photos as I could of the event. Below are a few examples of some that I took. You can find them all on our Flickr page in the MMA XFC photo collection.

As with all of our events, we love to see the photos the fans took. If you were able to attend the XFC Salute to Our Armed Forces event on June 7th and took your digital camera, camera phone, or can sketch really fast on paper, then we would love to see what you have. With your permission, we will even add anything you send us to a fan set on our Flickr page under the photo collection for this event (and give you credit of course). Send all photos to rupparenablog@gmail.com.

I just uploaded photos from PBR Bullnanza and the Rowdy Frynds Tour to our Flickr site. For Bullnanza, you can check a bunch of great action shots that our house photographer James Crisp took. For Rowdy Frynds however, there is a plethora of sets (sub-folders) in event’s photo collection. There are all the load-in and set up shots that I took day of the event, photos of the preshow in the Shops at Lexington Center, a bunch of “From the Stands” photos I took from my seat, and lastly some amazing photos that our house photographer Michael Wright took of all three acts (James Otto, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Hank Williams Jr.). I know, almost too many photos to handle, but I have faith that you will have it under control.

As with all of our events we LOVE to see what photos the fans took. With your permission we even post them on our Flickr page under a fan photo set giving you full credit. Even if you don’t want us to put them up, we would still love to see them. Feel free to spam rupparenablog@gmail.com with a zillion photos you took from Bullnanza, Rowdy Frynds, or any other event you attended.

This past Friday the Rowdy Frynds Tour came to Rupp Arena. For those of you who attended, you know how exciting it was. For those of you who didn’t, you definitely missed out, but I will do my best to provide you with some great pictures to ease your mind.

As I may have mentioned in the past, I primarily listen to rock music, all across the spectrum. Although I don’t listen to Hank Williams Jr. I definitely know who he is and have an appreciation for what he has brought to the music industry as a whole. Lynyrd Skynyrd on the other hand is more southern rock and less country so I definitely know all their hit songs and love quite a few of them.

Preshow

The night started off with some pre-show music in The Shops at Lexington Center which was hosted by 98.1 The Bull. The music was pretty good and had a local band who played covers and some original music, but definitely got all the fans in the mood for the concert (pictures will be on our Flickr page shortly).

Starting off the show was James Otto who is an up and coming country/rock musician. He did a great job of recognizing and thanking Lynyrd and Hank and had some great original music as well as a spot-on Bob Segar cover of Night Moves. He did a good performance and definitely caught the interest of most of the crowd.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Lynyrd Skynyrd is a recognizable name to anyone. If you don’t know of Free Bird (even if you don’t listen to it or like it), then you may as well not exist. Skynyrd is known for the southern style and extreme guitar solos. One of the amazing things is that they have seven people in their current touring group and three of them are guitarists. With most bands you usually have one guitarist who steals the show. With Lynyrd Skynyrd it seems like all of their guitarists (as well as the rest of the band) are equally talented and dedicated to their music.

Some of the songs they played were What’s Your Name?, That Smell, Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man, Tuesday’s Gone, Sweet Home Alabama, and of course Free Bird. I really wanted to hear Simple Man and Free Bird as well as Tuesday’s Gone (which I heard they didn’t play at some other venues). All in all it was an amazing performance with some of the best guitar solos I have heard and seen.

Hank Williams Jr.

Hank Jr. has a name that is recognized by many, both for his talent and the talent of his father. He had a great introduction video where it had Jimmy Kimmel and some others talking about the importance of the “Are You Ready For Some Football?” song, which Hank Jr. performs. Although his entrance wasn’t elaborate by any means (he just walked on to the stage waving), it definitely brought the audience to their feet and had everyone yelling to hear some of his music.

Hank did a great job of getting the audience pumped up and rounding out the night as a great concert. Although I may be a bit biased, I think Lynyrd Skynyrd stole the show. There were not really an weak points in all three performers, but Skynyrd rocked the house on so many songs and had everyone dancing and getting into the music. It seemed like they really put the rowdiness in the Rowdy Frynds Tour.

All the photos in this recap are ones that I snapped. In the next few days I will be adding photos from Bullnanza and from this event to our Flickr page. There will be lots of amazing photos taken by our house photographers and some ones I took from my seat. As always, if you managed to take any photos of either event then we would love to see them and put them in a Fan Photo set (giving you credit) on our Flickr site so anyone can check them out. Email any photos to rupparenablog@gmail.com. I hope everyone enjoyed the Rowdy Frynds Tour. It seemed like there weren’t any disappointed faces at the end of the night. To close, here are some various stats from the event: 2,620 gallons of beer were bought, 65 bottles of spirits were used to make drinks, and 517 gallons of soft drinks were swallowed.