It’s January, so that means it was time to make my 11th trek to Jamaica for my 12th trip Back to the Island. Several of my friends went a few days early, I ended up going a day after them – which was a good thing as a winter storm would have canceled my flight from Hartford to Baltimore and delayed the flight from Baltimore to Jamaica by several hours. Of course, this had my travel anxiety on high alert and when I received emails that my next day travel could also be affected by the storm, I started to panic. My roommate was already in Orlando and I had 2 options to get there Monday night and join her on the Tuesday morning flight to Jamaica. 4pm via Southwest (my preferred airline) or 8pm via JetBlue. Not wanting to use more PTO, I opted for JetBlue as both flights were the same price. In true Katie fashion, about 15 minutes after I paid for the JetBlue flight, it got delayed. (Or maybe it already had been, though I did check on flight aware) It kept getting more and more delayed so I ended up asking my boss if I could leave early and hoped that by some miracle Southwest would let me on the 4pm flight that had now been delayed to 4:30pm.
I got to the airport valet, was the only one there, got the shuttle driver’s well wishes and headed to TSA pre-check. I got held up due to my liquids, which turned out to be fine, and got to the gate as they were standing up to board. The gate agent told me that since they were getting ready to board it was deleted from their system and I said that was fine and I’d just settle in at the JetBlue gate for the evening, but tried to pull up the Southwest app on my phone to see if there was anyway what I had tried to purchase earlier was still in limbo somehow while she tried to see if there was anything she could do on her end. Turns out she could if I was fast – I handed her my ID and (southwest) credit card and she as quickly as she could booked me and handed me my ticket as they were calling for pre-boarders. “go go go!” she told me as I profusely thanked her for saving my day. As I sat on the plane the jetblue flight got delayed AGAIN – not arriving until 2am – but the text said I could get a full refund so I figured I’d deal with that when I landed as I didn’t want to cancel anything until I was on the ground in Orlando.
I landed, my friend picked me up, we got some food and headed to her parent’s place for the night. I was able to cancel my Hartford to Jamaica Southwest leg no problem. The JetBlue flight was telling me they’d give me $30 back or a travel credit. Their chat bot kept telling me they’d give me a credit, until I screenshot the “full refund” text they had sent me. Finally, everything was all settled and it was time to try and get some sleep before heading back to the airport to head to Jamaica in the morning. (MCO is one of my least favorite airports so you know I was panicking to willingly go there when I didn’t have to!)
Upon arrival to the airport the next morning, neither my friend or I could get our boarding passes and had to get in a looong help desk line that actually ended up being about 50% luggage. It turns out since neither of us were going back through Orlando on our way home and essentially had 2 one way tickets they needed to make sure we were actually leaving Jamaica. Once we proved that, we were on our way. Other than it being a completely full flight with I believe 18 wheelchairs at last count, it was rather uneventful. We ended up being almost last off and got stuck in a corner for a bit but that meant we were almost the last ones on our shuttle and took off for the resort almost immediately – but with 4 other hotel stops the ride took a couple of hours. (Note to self: It may be worth it to book private transport next year!)
With our extra days we just hung out around the resort – just before we were getting ready to leave we found out that the resort had been sold and would be closing January 23rd, right after the 2 events after ours had ended. We don’t know what the new owners will be doing and rumors were flying. Would they just upgrade the resort? Would they level it and buy something else completely? The first resort we went to in 2013 and 2014 was leveled and a much larger resort was built in its place, too large for us to hold our event. In 2015, we went to Mexico and that didn’t have a private beach so it was not an ideal place. In 2018, 2019 and 2020 we went to the Melia – which has closed since Covid and not reopened so unless we know for sure Jewel will be back open in time, it sounds like we will end up somewhere new. It also sounds like Island Gigs found out when we did, so hopefully they already had some different resorts in mind, but we’ll see what happens for year #13.
Our gift for Year #12 was a nice blue Stanley with the BTTI logo engraved on both sides. Every year I say I want my gift to just be a straw, so I finally got one! I was really happy it was blue too. We spent most of the day in/by the pool and then it was time for show #1!
Show 1
It was no surprise that they started with Back to the Island, as they almost always do. But when we were guessing and making mock setlists, I am not sure any of us ever would have guessed that they’d follow it up with Make it Out Alive. We also thought it would be a very Underneath heavy trip, since they just came off of that tour and it really wasn’t. I do wish we got a bit more members songs than we did – this set only had 1, but it was a more “singles” heavy set – which I always prefer they try to get out of the way early and save the good stuff for the last set. They also invited Phantom Planet on stage for the encore of Island In The Sun. I guess they had just arrived not too much earlier and almost weren’t able to get out due to being based in California with all the fires going on. It was absolutely surreal following all of that news, everything seemed like it was part of a movie and not real life. My heart goes out to everyone there and I was very sad to see at least 2 people with CP passed away because they were unable to evacuate.
Zac Solo Show
Zac was first up in the solo shows, and I thought he did a pretty decent job choosing his songs. Some were similar to his set from last year, but he threw in some changes – Save Me From Myself he said he didn’t play all that often and at only about 20 times I’ll give him that – and The Weight Of Emotion he said he only played a couple of times before which was true. A few others are his staples – like The Ballad of Seymour Better Times – which he has played every year since he first debuted it, but I think there may be a mutiny if he didn’t play it and have a few in the crowd play a long with their kazoos they brought from home. Overall it didn’t end up being my favorite and he didn’t debut anything new, but it wasn’t terrible by any means.
Show 2
Hanson kicked off Show #2 with their Bob Marley medley they’ve been doing – Three Little Birds and Stir It Up as well as their unofficial BTTI Anthem – Best of Times. Once again we didn’t get the Underneath show we were expecting – and even got the first appearance of the song One More at BTTI. This set had more of a mix of album and members songs, though the members songs we did get did tend to be ones that we get more often at these members events. We also got a song that “had been a minute since they’d played full band” and that it went back almost all the way to the beginning – River – which they hadn’t played full band since… August? All the rain at that Big Dam Party must have made it slip their minds. Since my friend wasn’t up for jumping during In the City and especially not in the sand – I decided to jump for her which is something I don’t typically do. And it was exhausting.
Gaming with Zac
We had signed up for games with Zac, but if it was another Mario Kart Marathon, we weren’t going to stay all night. We were pleasantly surprised to see that he had chosen a new game called BoomerangFU that seemed to go quicker, got more commentary for him and allowed for one more player. But after 2 rounds people started complaining that they had been practicing Mario Kart, so he switched back to it. We stuck around to see if we were in the first round to play, but after we weren’t we ended up going to the beach to see what Isaac and Taylor were up to and hung in the way way back with some snacks to see that Family Feud had become Pictionary. It was a good thing that we did end up over there as after their game ended, Isaac mentioned that Phantom Planet would be playing an acoustic set around the bonfire. There was a bit of back and forth on whether or not they would be due to if they could get power all the way over there, but they did a completely unplugged no amplification set of Phantom of the Opera, California, Lonely Day and Balisong.
Isaac Solo Show
Isaac’s solo show is always a bit of a wild card, but he seemed to come prepared for this one. He started off a bit meh for me, I could do without Deeper, but since he wrote it in Brazil and there were quite a few Brazilian fans in attendance he found it appropriate to play. He then went on to play Being Me – which almost made it on to Red Green Blue and somehow despite it actually being released I’ve managed to hear it 25 times live. He did mention now that it seemed to be finished, it may end up finding its way on to a release. He then pulled out the words to the next song, said he had played it around 7 times and then went into Ordinary Words – except it was his 3rd time playing it. Did he count the times he was practicing it backstage? The guitar tech ended up coming out and holding the lyrics sheet for him so he could make it through the song. I am all for them using lyrics during these performances if it means we get to hear rarer songs. He also did 3 songs from his Mother Road Sons side project – Mother of Exiles which he had done last year as well as Another Rainy Day in Tulsa and Today is All You Get. He also got pressured into doing More Than Anything and kind of let us behind the curtain to say that he knew it by heart because he had played it so many times – not that he was really all that good at piano. I was also glad that one of the songs I has asked for on tour that didn’t end up making an appearance – Lonely Again – made it into his set.
Phantom Planet
I was looking forward to Phantom Planet’s full set, as it seemed that for tour they did basically the same few songs at each show I went to and I knew they had a lot more material. I was familiar with maybe half of their set on the beach and really enjoyed it. Isaac had come out to watch some of it, but ended up getting mobbed by fans shortly after he was spotted. Alex even ended up crowd surfing which I did not expect to ever see at a Hanson-adjacent concert (and after he had just talked about attempting to crowd surf and landing on the floor and breaking ribs!). They ended up calling Isaac up pretty early in their set and said he could sing whatever he wanted with them, we thought he would have ended up going to grab Taylor and Zac, but nope, he came back for the end and joined them for California and Big Brat, sans Zac and Taylor.
Games with Isaac and Taylor
It was time for our night of games with Isaac and Taylor. They said they’d be calling 10 teams each for a total of 20 for pictionary. We ended up getting called by Taylor and I was elected our “artist”. I rolled a “5” which got me the category of “Pop Culture” my friends had already decided they were just going to troll and call out song requests and not really guess – and my choices were either ‘Home Alone’ or ‘Back to the Future’ when Isaac asked if I was ready to draw, I sighed and said ‘As I’m going to be’ and attempted to draw Kevin and his ‘AHHH!’ face. Except the whole crowd was yelling about monkeys and I knew I was in trouble. I drew a house – then pointed to the roof and then started to panic. At some point I heard Taylor say “It’s Pop Culture not Hanson Songs!” so I knew they were on their way with our plan and Taylor didn’t like it and then I heard Taylor say “Home Alone?” and I turned and pointed at him and I think he asked me again “It’s home alone?!” and I was like “Yea!” and then Isaac realized that I was trying to draw Kevin with my first attempt. HOW he got it, I had no idea, but once he said it, everyone realized what I was trying to do. Pretty much everyone agreed they wouldn’t have really known how to have drawn it either and we all also had no idea other than Taylor reading my mind how the heck he had guessed it. In the end, Taylor ended up losing to Isaac though it did end in a tie breaker with each of them having to draw. Phantom Planet also joined Isaac’s team for a round. Some of those cards and what you had to draw… not easy. (And yet others – incredibly simple – all in the luck of the roll of that die for your category!)
Taylor Solo Show
Taylor was by far the solo show winner – even if he did play Save Me. (He had also mentioned he had looked back to see what he had played in past years and I took that to mean he had looked at my site for that information, whether that be the case or not.) After 3 song requests via artistic endeavors and pestering him about it since September – he did an attempt of Pink Moon on the guitar by himself. He then went back over to the piano and talked about he thinks about what he’d play if it was his last show ever – which got everyone a bit up in arms. He teased that it wasn’t his last show – he had another one that night, at least. He also ended up playing Bridges of Stone which has been asked about for YEARS (and was last played about a dozen times on the This Time Around tour 25 years ago) and finished his set out with Lost Without You which is one of the more underplayed songs from Anthem.
Show 3
Somehow we had made it to our final show of the trip. Isaac had posted a photo of him reading a book called You Never Know and I had asked my friends if it was a clue to a song they’d be playing and they all said no – but hey, maybe Hanson can hide song easter eggs too! Speechless was thrown in for only the 2nd time at a BTTI ever and after being written off the top of his head at a previous BTTI and then being reworked for the 2024 Member’s EP – Every Time We Touch was bumbled through for it’s first appearance. This setlist was really all over the place – some less popularly played album songs, some more popularly played members songs – with Change in My Life acapella thrown in for good measure? I’m not sure I could have picked out these songs for you if you gave me a million guesses.
After the last show was Taylor’s Pool Dance Party – we were pretty exhausted by that point, but our room was right by all the partying so even if we did try to go to sleep, we’d hear everything anyway so we stayed awake until Taylor once again ended the evening by jumping into the pool. He walked past us to leave and we headed to our room to finish up packing. My shuttle was set to take off at 9:50am so I was trying to get as much done before I went to sleep as I could.
It seemed like nearly everyone was leaving at my time and there were at least 2 buses if not 3, I was lucky enough to be the first on the first bus, but as we were getting ready to leave someone hadn’t settled their charges so we had to wait. Then when we started moving the bus started making a beeping noise, so the driver pulled over and and got out and then got back in and said nothing. Not long after it started beeping again and he pulled over to say the radiator needed more water and he was going to get some and it would take 2 minutes. He then ended up stopping again to pick up someone who worked at the airport. Sometimes I end up taking a shuttle that leaves an hour earlier to make sure I have enough time to get a wheelchair and get through security and didn’t so I was beginning to second guess myself. We made it to the airport and they had renovated. Southwest was all the way on the end and it seemed like they had a lot of workers just waiting with wheelchairs which was a plus. They took my walker from me and said I could get it at baggage claim in Baltimore. We went through security but of course not being able to walk without my shoes on caused problems and I had to go to a private room to get my brace swiped and they wouldn’t even let the wheelchair pusher in the room with me. He seemed really concerned and asked if i was ok and what they did to me once they let him back in to get me. We got to the gate with plenty of time to spare. There ended up being about 13 wheelchairs. We somehow were able to take off early which we thought meant we could land early, but there was another plane on the runway so we had to circle before landing. Baltimore had wheelchairs waiting, and while I told my pusher I had global entry, he took me to the wheelchair line anyway which was backed up as 3 planes had landed at the same time. I didn’t push it because I had 3 hours. Once again Baltimore’s pre-check had no cane, but I got them to let me use my own for as long as I could and then held the TSA agents hand through the metal detector.
The flight to Hartford was only 35% full so we all got our own row which was nice. Things went smoothly, but as I got off the shuttle to my car I realized that my walker was damaged and the brakes weren’t catching and it was rolling away as I was trying to load things up to get to my car. I made a claim with Southwest and they sent things to a 3rd party to see if they could fix it. After working things out with them, it seems like they are going to be sending me a replacement instead.
I’m looking forward to seeing what BTTI26 might have in store for us – will we still be in Jamaica? Will we move back to Negril? Will we venture to another country?
Katie 
