Hours before the 2008 CMT Awards show was scheduled to start, fans had staked out barricades surrounding the tour buses outside of Maddox, hoping to see stars and get autographs.

Most of the flock was not made up of students, but instead, adults and children with cameras strung around their necks. They were gathered sparsely around different areas of the barricade until a group yelped, “Miley!”

A green SUV had pulled up beside a tour bus and a little person who is maybe (but maybe not) Miley Cyrus flashes out of one door and into the other. Everyone fumbles for the camera around their neck as the group migrates toward one bus. The little person, however, never reappears.
Students leaning out of their Maddox windows started mocking the crowd, shouting at non-existent celebrities.

“Robert Plant. Here comes Robert Plant,” says a voice emitting from a megaphone. Anything said through a megaphone sounds official and the crowd became giddy. They quickly realized, however, this too was just mocking from the dorm guys.

Things settled then and the crowd became bored for a few minutes until a student from a third-story window starts shouting, “I see Snoop Dogg.”

The crowd had learned the kid’s tricks and was hardly aroused. Until they saw Snoop Dogg appear from behind two buses.

Snoop Dogg approached the crowd, autographed a paper, posed for a photograph and then began to trot down the barricade, looking somewhat lost and confused. His two large bodyguards pointed to nothing in particular and confused the onlookers even more.

“He’s stoned,” one onlooker said, speaking with no authority whatsoever.

“Yeah, right, not on Belmont’s campus,” another refuted.

Snoop Dogg then spotted a single young girl hanging over a barricade and trotted to her to sign an autograph. By the time he is finished, people have their cell phones out in his face trying to capture a picture. Snoop Dogg walked backward away from the barricade, again looking confused. A woman, holding out pen and paper, pleads, “Please, Snoop Dogg, it’s for my daughter.”

He paused in the street for a moment until it seemed he has an epiphany. He jumped onto a nearby cream-colored Escalade. His bodyguards were then behind this vehicle and guided it, although there was no other traffic in the sectioned off area.

The crowd stayed giddy for a bit while people reviewed their Snoop-seeing experiences.

Minutes later Dan Akroyd appeared, arms raised, trying to engage the crowd. They seemed unimpressed with most cameras still just dangling around their necks. Snoop Dogg is a hard act to follow.