Concert Katie

Hanson Underneath:Experience Tour – Minneapolis

Katie October 9, 2024 0Comment

Thursday and Friday I was in Minneapolis, MN to see Hanson kick off their Underneath:Experience tour.  For this tour every city gets 2 shows – with night one being acoustic and night two being electric.  Opening for the tour on acoustic night is Matthew Sweet, who co-wrote Underneath with Hanson and opening on electric night is Phantom Planet – their bass player Sam played bass on Underneath.

After a whirlwind trip to PA for the P!nk show, I headed up to the airport and was absolutely ready to nap on the plane.  This plane had a closet on board for mobility devices, so my walker (toaster) got to ride on the plane with me for the first time! Plane napping didn’t go so well as I had a too tall guy in the seat next to me and couldn’t really get comfortable with us battling for space.

I arrived at the hotel, got dinner and was ready to fall asleep. I started to watch The Masked Singer episode but fell asleep about halfway through.

Thursday morning I had a lazy day until I decided to get in line for the show.  Please note that the rest of this review is going to have show and setlist spoilers so if you’re looking to not know what is happening this tour, you probably should X out and come back later.

For the Thursday show I was triple booked – I “had” to watch the Savannah Bananas draft to see what cities they’d be going to in 2025 and then I “had” to keep an eye on the Mets game as it was a do or die game for the wild card.  The bananas stream went into Matthew Sweet’s set, but it was so mellow I was glad to have a bit of a distraction.  When I was looking at the Mets score, it was 0-0 for a long time, and then I saw the Brewers go up 2-0 and I figured it was over (even though it was the 7th) but then my app just kept showing the Mets scoring runs in the 9th and they ended up winning.  (Seriously if you don’t want show spoilers – leave!)

After Hanson’s Church show over the weekend, I figured that about half of that set would make its way into the acoustic set – and it did.  I absolutely love the slowed down acoustic Runaway Run so I am very glad that it made the setlist.  They also brought back solos – Isaac did Hand in Hand, Zac did The Walk (which is one of my favorites but also timed itself poorly with the baseball game so I was distracted) and Taylor did Every Word I Say which a couple of my friends had asked him to play.  I on the other hand asked him to NOT play a song – and am happy to report he did not.  Will it stick for the rest of my shows? We’ll see.  Highlights included Teach Your Children with the 3 of them with Isaac on guitar around the center mic, Cory Wong joining them for Thinking ‘Bout Somethin’ and I Was Born being acoustic.

Once the show was over it was time for DJ Taylor and the after party.  Doors were supposed to be at 10:30 and it would start at 11, but due to technical difficulties it didn’t start until closer to 11:30.  I didn’t last very long – the room seemed crammed and after a few songs I made my way to chat with some people in the back and then headed outside as my friends said they were going to grab some pizza.  I could hear all the songs from outside and couldn’t see Taylor even when I was inside so pretty much the same experience, but with friends!

I had found out that Hanson was going to be on the radio at 8:30am Friday morning.  I set my alarm, it went off, and next thing I knew it was 9am and I had missed it.  I guess I was tired?

I got in line for the show early-ish and was very much so looking forward to Phantom Planet’s set.  I recognized more songs than I thought I would (ie more than just ‘California’) and they were a lot of fun and seemed really impressed with the crowd interaction and the singing that they had us do.

Then it was time for the electric set! I had a new spot for this show, so the setlist was not below me.  I was glad that I didn’t see anything ahead of time because the setlist was full of surprises and when I am 🫨 multiple times during a setlist you KNOW it’s good.  They opened with Optimistic, which I expected based on the church show.  Minus points for Taylor being on the acoustic guitar during Dancing in the Wind and not electric to throw it back to 2004.  There also seemed to be a bit of a “World” theme going on with the show – Where’s the Love – it makes the world go round and round – World Goes Around… later in the set we were treated to a cover of Everybody Wants to Rule the World (sort of a medley/mashup with Crazy Beautiful – which Isaac later told us was somewhat inspired by the Tears for Fears song) and World’s on Fire.  I also liked how they did the “old” penny and me – sort of tweaked it with the emphasis on the “Singing along to Feelin’ Alright” like they do in the new version – and then went into a cover of Feelin’ Alright so we really WERE singing along.

The only part I would have maaybbbe changed was the “acoustic” set within the electric set – Never Let Go and I Will Come To You.  We’ll see how they switch things around.  Overall throughout the 2 nights they did all of the main songs from Underneath with the exception of Misery and Lullabelle.  I would not be surprised to see Lullabelle pop up as a Zac solo when he starts doing them again (he skipped them in Chicago in Detroit).  Of the bonus tracks, there’s still 3 more that need to find their way into the sets and I’m hoping they will at my future shows.

We once again did not get Pink Moon – Zac said Taylor wasn’t really liking how it was going but it WOULD be coming during the tour. I told him I’d be going to half of the shows and he promised I would hear it.  He did end up doing in Chicago, so I am optimistic. (no pun intended)

After the show we waited by the bus for what seemed like forever (it didn’t help that I was in shorts and the temperature dropped a LOT from when we went into the show until we got out) but Zac and Isaac came out and we were able to get photos with them and chat for a bit.  Taylor had left earlier in an uber with one of his daughters and just waved to everyone.

I am a lot more excited about this tour now than I was – I said I would only allow duplicates of Penny and Me (Moonlight one night, OG the other) and MMMBop and that was the only duplicates they were.  A lot of covers, even though most were throw backs and a good mix of songs in the setlist. It’ll be fun to see how the setlist evolves (or not) over the course of the month at the rest of my shows.  (I have not yet decided if I’ll be doing separate reviews or putting them all into one catch all at the end… we’ll see how I’m feeling and if I have a lot more to say or not!)

Hanson at the Church Studio

Katie October 1, 2024 0Comment

Friday I made another trek to Tulsa, this time for a special, limited, members only event. They were returning to the historic church studio where they recorded underneath acoustic 20 years ago.

Hanson at TN Valley Fair

Katie September 16, 2024 0Comment

One day I had decided I was going to really focus and get all of my work done early. And then I realized that a new Hanson show was announced at the TN Valley Fair in Knoxville, TN and then I realized that I had just spent $700+ on 6 front row seats before asking any of my friends if they were even interested. Turns out most of them were in, and plans commenced.

I flew in to Nashville Thursday afternoon, which when I got to the airport it had no gate listed, but eventually some staff members came and realized the mistake and the screens were corrected and the flight was otherwise uneventful. My friend picked me up at the airport, we got lunch and then went back to her place to decide what to do in the evening and opted to check out a nearby resort and ended up seeing a Halloween light show, having dinner and riding a boat ride that doubled as a silent disco. It was my first time doing a silent disco and it was a lot of fun and definitely something I’d consider doing again. Later in the evening the rest of our crew arrived, we made a rough plan for the next day and went to bed.

Friday we headed from Nashville to Knoxville with a stop at Cracker Barrel for lunch and of course Buc-ees to load up on snacks. We then made our way to the fairgrounds, which apparently was built on nothing but hills and they had no accessible parking spots anyway. When we kept asking, every lot near where we wanted to be was for vendors. Finally we found a lot that said the giant concrete hill was “accessible” because it was concrete and not grass.  I think they missed the part of ADA where the parking spots are supposed to be flat? We slowly made our way to the stage, finally finding a first aid golf cart that was willing to give me a ride the last bit of the way there.  We ended up bumping into Taylor and chatting for a bit and getting a photo and then headed inside to our seats.  Apparently none of the ushers/security there knew how to count… but after some drama turns out, we were right and knew better than they did what seats were sold.

Before the show we had made a mock setlist and we were pretty close, but they did end up throwing in a few surprises – Look at You, Can’t Stop and Hey that we weren’t expecting.  The show was a lot of fun, the crowd had a ton of energy and all the ridiculousness we had to go through to get there was forgotten.  After the show we waited over by the van, but it was straight up teeniebopper land with people screaming for ‘Zachary’ – when he came over he quickly did some photos and I was able to snag him for one – but he didn’t stick around for very long.  I’m not sure if anyone else came out as they were closing the building we needed to exit through so we got told to leave – but we did manage to get someone to track down the first aid golf cart again and get us back to the car.  I wanted to take a picture of how ridiculous the “accessible” parking was, but I had forgotten.

Sunday night I ended up returning the rental car, “stealing” a car with a staff member, getting dropped off at the terminal, grabbing a wheelchair and heading to the gate. But not before my Buc-ees snacks needed an extra inspection… Upon arrival at the gate I was told that the plane held 175 people but would only have 23 on board and that we’d all get our own row (and then some) and we had to make sure to spread out for weight and balances.

Hanson at The Big Dam Party

Katie September 5, 2024 0Comment

When I was doing some Hanson concert math, I realized that if I added in this one off show in Tulsa, my 300th show would be Zac’s birthday on tour, provided they didn’t add any other shows in between.  Then they did end up adding a show in between and well, at that point I had already booked this trip and while I could have backed out – once you’ve given yourself a Hanson concert, can you really take it away from yourself?

I had hoped to fly Southwest both ways, but they didn’t have any flights to get me home so I did a Southwest/American split.  I took an afternoon flight to Chicago, which had an hour and 20 minutes for a layover.  Except no wheelchairs came and by the time they did show up, I had 30 minutes to get to the other gate and then I was left up at the top of the jet bridge and by the time a pusher actually came, she said ‘oh girl, you don’t have much time’, I mean… I know but is there anything I can do about it when I’m at the mercy of other people and there’s no one nearby to even flag down to call someone to help me? We got to the gate for the connecting flight to Tulsa with *9* minutes to spare and no chance to stop for food or the bathroom.  For the most part, the flight was otherwise uneventful but we did have to wait for lightning to pass once we landed because the ground crew had taken cover.  Uber wanted $50 to get me to the hotel and Lyft wanted only $20, so for the weekend my allegiance was with Lyft. I also ordered door dash to show up shortly after I thought I’d be checked in and settled and they didn’t bring half of my order so that was fun. (We have the worst luck with DoorDash/UberEats in Tulsa!)

Saturday morning I was pretty lazy, but ended up heading outside to hit up Ida Red for some Hanson merch and Antoinette’s for some snacks and to also see just how hot it was and how long I’d want to sit in it at the park before the show. I also ordered some lunch and timed it out perfectly to do it all in one trip.  I ended up deciding to try and get to The Gathering Place around 4.  I was hoping I could convince my Lyft driver to break the rules and drop me off in a closer parking lot than the designated drop off, and he agreed!  As soon as we spotted the largest rubber duck he went into the lot and I told them I was just hopping out and no one had a problem with that.  I found the stage and realized it was down a giant hill so I parked myself at the top because I wasn’t sure I could make it down on my own, and once I found out it might start raining I didn’t want to end up stuck down there if I had to run for cover.

At 5, Joleen Brown took the stage.  She had won The Big Show Off that happened earlier this year and Zac Hanson was a judge. She did a 30 minute set and I think the weather was really messing with her – the sun was bright and shining right at the stage, but she powered through!

It then started drizzling and I debated if I should go find a tent or stay where I was, and once I committed to the poncho it started coming down a lot harder and I was mildly regretting my decisions but had to stick it out at that point.  I also somehow didn’t put the poncho on right and my left leg was getting soaked but my right was fine?  I think it was because I tried to hide my arms inside as well.  Fortunately my new shorts that I was hoping would dry quickly, did.  At 7 when it was still raining (and some thunder and lightning too) we were told that the show was going to still happen but would be delayed.  The rain seemed to let up a little bit after 8 and the stage started to get set up for Hanson.  I took my poncho off, but it ended up starting to rain again and the radar was showing until 11 so I kept it on – but was hoping I’d have enough breaks in the weather to get some photos! (Which I did, but haven’t gotten them off the camera yet)  I also found out that having a cosmic brownie in the middle of a Hanson concert takes it to a whole other level, thanks to my friend Keena and her daughters who decided to share a snack with me.

The setlist was a bit of what I was expecting for a festival show with a couple of hometown covers thrown in – Livin’ on Tulsa Time and Never Been to Spain.  I do think some of the set got cut short due to the delay, but I unfortunately haven’t seen a setlist from the stage to know what was missing.  I thought that they might have finished with If Only – and was a bit surprised it was Get the Girl Back (unless it was a last minute change due to a wet stage?)

After the show I met up with my friends Jon and Adam, got to see the giant duck from the front and they walked me to the parking lot which was FOREVER away, so I am glad that I got my Lyft driver to break the rules! Jon ended up driving me back to the hotel because the spot to wait for ride share was very dark!

Sunday I woke up, ate the rest of my snacks, packed, and then grabbed a Lyft to the airport.  As soon as I entered the airport, I got an alert that my flight was delayed by about 15 minutes. I had a decent layover in Charlotte, so I figured if it stayed that way, I should be fine.  At the gate they told us it was a small plane and all roller bags would need to be tagged and if you had less than 30 minutes of a layover, they would check it to your final destination as waiting for the bags would hold them up and the bags would move to the plane much faster than the passengers would.  The gate agent also thought we’d be able to make the 10 minutes the flight was late up in the air.

I was optimistic until we were getting ready to land and were told that Charlotte airport had instituted a ground stop and we were unable to land there and they wanted us to circle until 6:45pm.  The captain said we didn’t have enough fuel to do that so we were going to circle for 10 minutes and see if we could land then or we would have to divert to Columbia, SC.  After the 10 minutes we were told the ground stop was until 7:30pm and we’d need to divert to refuel.  They had us stay on the plane for a bit, and told anyone if they got off they were terminating their trip and would have to find their own way back. A few people opted to try and get rental cars to get back to Charlotte.  My 8pm flight to Hartford got pushed to 9:30 so I figured I’d still be ok and would wait it out.  They then told us the ground stop was extended to 8:30pm and let us get off the plane. Of course my walker was nowhere to be found so they got me a wheelchair to get inside.  I was able to see some fireworks while we waited.  There were several other diverted planes, one of which got canceled until the next morning, but eventually we were told we would be boarding again.  Of course, there was no one around to push the wheelchair so I had to steady myself with my suitcase and slowly make my way back out to the plane.  It took a bit for us to finally take off, but in that time my flight got pushed to 10pm and then 11pm.  I got to Charlotte around 10pm and by then, my flight was going to take off at midnight and get me back to CT at 2am.  Most of the food places were starting to close, but my wheelchair pusher told me what ones were open 24 hours so I could get some dinner. (or lunch? I don’t even know)

The gate agent ended up giving me an upgrade to the extra leg room seats and I ended up having the row all to myself.  The captain thought we’d land earlier than 2am and make up some time in the air, but even though he did get us on the ground at about 1:45am, the grounds crew was not ready for us so we had to wait.  I got the valet shuttle to my car and got home around 3am – with a stop for McDonalds… for… dinner?

Fortunately I had Monday off due to the Labor Day holiday and was able to sleep in (I don’t think I actually fell asleep until around 5am) and not have to worry about doing much of anything.  It’s always an adventure… and now I am trying to wrap this up and get it posted before I head out for my next trip…