RGB Tour – Leg 5

For our last leg of the tour we got up stupid early to get the first flight out from Minneapolis to Seattle. I attempted to get some sleep but failed.  Upon landing in Seattle we found a Mexican restaurant to have breakfast and then dove right in to being touristy.  We parked at Pike’s Place and took an uber to the Starbucks Reserve. Since I am not a coffee person I perched myself on what might have been the most comfortable stool ever and got the setlist from the night before posted.  Then we headed back to Pike’s Place, wandered around a little bit, saw the gum wall. (I am not sure why I was thinking that was a good idea but I also wasn’t thinking the whole city was on an insane incline) We sent a friend up a million stairs to a nice view of the city and then headed over to see the Freemont Troll. For dinner we tried to time a seaside dinner at Ray’s with the sunset and were pretty successful.

The next morning we made our way to Vancouver.  The questions at the border were pretty quick and when we said we were entering for a concert and leaving Saturday morning all we got was “OK bye” and we were on our way. We headed straight to Granville Island to wander around a bit before our whale watching excursion.   We did our tour with “Prince of Whales” because in addition to not tracking or getting to close to the whales, they have a photographer on board.  I knew if I went I’d want to try and get a great photo and miss out on the actual experience so it was nice knowing that I could just sit back and watch and we’d hopefully get some decent shots from the pros who know what they are looking for.  While I really was hoping for some orcas, we ended up spending about an hour with 5 Humpback Whales.  One of which completely came up to the side of the boat and blew out its blowhole and scared the crap out of us.  When we got the photos, I realized that on the other side of the boat one had breached out of the water a whole lot as opposed to just the tails and dorsal fins we were seeing on our side of the boat.  We did end up circling around where the orcas were known to hang out, but none of them were spotted. (And a PSA to parents out there, if you’re taking your small child who might be newly potty trained on a 3-5 hour boat ride – you might want to ask him regularly if he needs to use the toilet before he starts screaming “I pee peed!” over and over and you have to yell at your friend to jump up off the bench she was sitting on before she gets hit with a stream of pee.)  After the boat we ate at a restaurant right next to the boat dock but it turned out to have some pretty nice views. (Of our waiter.)  We made it to the hotel just in time to see sunset out of our window.

The next day was show day and pretty dreary.  We had already decided we’d be trying for front row balcony at the venue and had no plans to get there early. The groups split up with 1 going to a suspension bridge and the other 2 doing the hop on hop off bus tour – which included a drive by Hanson’s tour buses.  I find the hop on hop off buses to be a fun way to see a lot of the city without needing to do a lot of walking and we didn’t hop off but ended up finding an Orca statue I had wanted to see as well as some of the more (and less) touristy areas.  After dinner we got to the venue about 3 hours before doors and ended up being 1, 2 an 3 in line.  Unfortunately there was no way I could stand for 4+ hours in the front row so I was stuck back in the seats.  It was really weird to watch the crowd from the middle and it was even weirder how even when I stayed seated some songs I could see all 3 band members clearly and others I could see none as well as the overall reactions of the crowds throughout the setlist.  We were keeping our ears peeled for Taylor playing my request – so when he came out and said he was changing up things for his solo and needed the guys to pay attention – I was curious what got skipped.  Taylor ended up changing his solo to Truth and then following it up once again with “With a Little Help from my Friends”, my friend snagged the setlist from the sound booth on our way out and his solo was supposed to be SAVE ME (ugh) followed by… LOST WITHOUT YOU!   Was he not sure if I was there because I was back in the seats hidden? Or did he just decide they weren’t ready to actually play it yet?

After the show we went to wait by the buses and I was approached by a young man who wanted to know what we were doing and if we were waiting for a club.   Zac came out and I was able to get a photo with him so I got one solo shot with each of them throughout the course of the tour which made me happy.  When we got back to the hotel we doordashed some A&W and there’s nothing better than post show poutine.

The next morning we woke up and hit up a grocery store to get every ketchup chip imaginable and some other snacks and drinks. We won’t mention how much we ended up spending. (But it was in Canadian money so not quite as bad as it sounds.)  Then we waited to cross the border back to the US.  While we were waiting, a familiar face jumped out of the van next to us to relieve himself on the side of the road.  One of the members of the opening act.  He gave us a smirk as he got back in the van but we weren’t sure if he recognized us as fans or not.  At this point we were considering renaming it the RGPee tour.

Two hours later we crossed the border and the agent asked us if the concert we went to see was The Weeknd.  When we said no, it was Hanson, he asked if they were still alive.  I’m not sure what other band (that became famous in their teens, mind you) gets this kind of reaction.  It’s not like they were senior citizens 25 years ago?

We made it back to Seattle but the first option we had picked for dinner was closed so we had to go to a more upscale version upstairs.  So upscale they had minimal non-seafood entrees and as not the biggest seafood fan I was going to get just a salad – but then I noticed they had pasta with mushroom, asparagus and crab.  If I just got that without crab on it, I’d be all set.  I asked if I could and the waitress said they can do a vegan veggie version and I said just the pasta and mushrooms and asparagus would be fine.  Well, it came and had 0 mushrooms and was full of cauliflower, brusselsprouts, squash… and I’m not vegan or vegetarian – the opposite in fact – and I’m just picky. (It also came with some cheese so it definitely wasn’t vegan)  I ate around all the veggies and just ate the pasta – the waitress was pretty confused when half my plate was left and I didn’t want a box and I was done with it.  Maybe if you listened you’d not have been so surprised? (And maybe I should have ended up asking for the kids menu)

Seattle was seated so we got there just after doors and got settled in to our spot. The show was pretty usual, but when Zac came down for the acoustic set he seemed extra smiley our way.  After the acoustic set ended (with Write You a Song as Isaac’s solo?) they started a song I didn’t quite recognize at first.  Could it be? Nah. Did they? YEAH!  Lost Without You!  My request had made it into a set!!  And the encore included I Don’t Want To Go Home which we had been mentioning earlier in the day as something we’d like to hear.  After the show the bus situation was a mess so we opted to get to our hotel that was about an hour out of Seattle on the way to Portland.

There was only a couple of sightseeing things I wanted to see in Portland – the Keep Portland Weird mural and the White Stag sign, but unfortunately that was on top of a building and we couldn’t quite come at it form the right angle to get a good shot of it.  We grabbed a bite to eat a couple of blocks from the venue (And spotted Zac wandering around while we were trying to park the car) and then headed for our fun evening at the haunted Crystal Ballroom.  My friends had their BTTI M&G Photo make up and would end up in the front row, so I got a front row balcony ticket for this show.

I ended up going in at the tail end of ADA and rode up the (totally haunted) elevator by myself and then had to do 1 flight of stairs up to the balcony.  The balcony was 21+ and when I mentioned I had a seat the guy at the door said he didn’t know anything about them.  This led to anyone trying to come and sit in them whether they had a ticket for them or not.  At first, it didn’t bother me – I was in my seat so it wouldn’t be an issue of someone taking my spot from me – but then people kept asking me if the seats next to me were taken. I told them they were assigned and they went a few seats down and climbed over the seats to sit.  Eventually, the people who rightfully owned those seats showed up and they came to exit the row – but stood next to me and said nothing.  When I didn’t get up (because I wasn’t ASKED to get up) they said “You know you could try moving”, well I don’t know how it works on the west coast but on the east coast when someone sees me sitting there with my cane they typically a) ask if I don’t mind getting up OR b) tell me not to move and they’ll jump over me.  Neither came out of their mouths except attitude – and if they listened to me when I told them the seats were assigned – they’d not have been in that predicament!  (The Portland venue had a LOT of attitude and as it was nearing the end of our trip I was exhausted and NOT HERE FOR ANY OF IT.)

The Grand Southern flubbed up and initially said “Hello Seattle – Portland” but we had done so much traveling ourselves that I honestly wasn’t sure they were wrong when they said Seattle at first.  They also had a friend join them on stage for one of their songs.

Hanson started the night differently with Can’t Stop and I thought we were on our way to a pretty big setlist shake up, but it settled back into the usual right after.  During Rambling Heart Taylor looked like he was going to stand, but also looked like he was motioning for the roadie to give him a stool (he has sat every time he has played the song, as far as I know) but the roadie seemed like he had no idea what he wanted, when we all knew it was the stool! Also of note the venue splits the floor down the middle for drinking and not drinking.  The stage is fully on the not drinking side and then there’s a little cat walk.  Anyone who wanted to go from the drinking side to the other had to finish/leave their cups on the drinking side.  The floor is also springy so it was fun to see when random people out on the floor were trying it out and bouncing.

After the show we tried waiting for the bus but then got security-splained what a corner was and by that point I was over everything.  The venue was on a huge incline and my brace kept feeling like it was going to snap because I was standing so unnaturally on it.  I ended up going back to the car while my friends waited for Zac as they had items for him to sign. Turns out only Isaac came out and was in a rush so I didn’t end up missing much.

The next day was our last full day and was set for sightseeing.  First we headed to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and did their self-guided tour.  You can have samples of cheese and see the process of making the cheese from milk to being packaged.  Also on site is a cafe for all your cheese needs and ice cream too.  And of course, a gift shop full of all the cheese and dairy products you could ever want – which of course we couldn’t buy as we had no way to keep things refrigerated. (But I did stock up on socks and magnets and postcards!)

We then headed to Canon Beach to see Haystack Rock, aka the beach from The Goonies.  The Goonies is my all time favorite movie so when I knew we were going in that direction I knew we had to hit up the beach and Astoria, OR as well.  After admiring the beach for a bit, we headed to the old Oregon Jail which is now the Oregon Film Museum.  This is seen in the opening scene of The Goonies and they have the Fratelli’s car outside and there’s some goonies memorabilia (And Free Willy!) and you also get a “Set Pass” which allows you to make 5 minutes of movie footage in the room that has 3 sets set up with various scenes that were filmed in Oregon you could recreate.  It was a fun idea but I think we all decided we probably don’t have a future as an actress.  Next we headed to the Flavel House Museum Carriage Shed which housed the penny machine.  The museum itself is where Mikey’s Dad worked in the movie and is actually directly across the street from the jail, but the movie has magic editing so you’d never know that from watching.   Then I had to decide if I wanted to see Mikey’s house or not.  I knew you couldn’t drive right up to it and needed to walk, but not having watched the movie in a while I wasn’t sure how much of a hill it was situated on.  Turns out, quite a hill and all gravel.  But we made it up, laughing about the seal that were barking SO LOUDLY the whole time, despite the water not even being all that close to the house.  There was another group coming down when we were going up and the owner came out to grab her mail and tell us to be careful because the walk down the hill could be “treacherous” (We were being super careful because hills and gravel any other time are something I absolutely would have passed on attempting) We asked her about the seals and she said they leave for the month of July and then come back and are so loud 24/7 and it’s not so bad during the day, but at night it’s not so great.  She also pointed out where the Kindergarten Cop school was and said that the house from Short Circuit was nearby as well.

I had gotten word Astoria had a new penny machine at a Brewery and while we weren’t yet ready to eat, we stopped in to grab the pennies and while we were there, were told that they had bought TWO penny machines and the 2nd was just across the street – and unreported! That was the first time that I had ever found an unreported penny machine before so that was pretty exciting, unfortunately one of the pennies was not rolling properly based on the markers in the machine and I wasn’t able to adjust to fix it after 2 tries but hopefully someone else will come across it in the future and be able to figure it out and get me a full roll.

For our trek back to Seattle, we decided to add 15 minutes to the drive and continue to go along the coast.  This meant we went across the Astoria-Megler Bridge which was super high off the ground but lended itself for some amazing views.  The extra 15 minutes we spent driving was absolutely worth it as the views were so amazing they often looked fake.  We ended up stopping at a hole in the wall restaurant for way too much food for dinner and continued on to Seattle with a beautiful sunset behind us.

When I woke up the next morning to get ready for my flight, my 2nd leg was already delayed.  It ended up bouncing from 30 mins late to an hour late to not late at all over and over again all day. My first flight to Chicago was fine, though seemed extremely long and I was struggling to sleep because of the woman next to me.  The Chicago to Hartford flight in the end was delayed due to not being able to catch up from the initial delay of the morning but then we also had a flight attendant arriving late in another terminal and had to make her way over to us.  My 12:30am landing time ended up more like 2am and all I wanted to do was hit up the 24 hour McDonalds by the airport and finally get some food! But when I pulled in everything was dark and they were closed for a steam cleaning!  The McDonalds by my house is also 24 hours so 3am cheeseburgers it was and then immediately to sleep as I had a 10am work meeting to attend the next day.

RGB Tour Leg 4

My tour travels are still going, but I need to use today’s off day to blog about the last 3 shows or by the time I finish with the next 3 I won’t remember anything.  I failed at journaling after each show so hopefully I’ll remember all the big things… [Note: My travels are over and I wasn’t able to finish this post early like I had hoped!]

First up was Minneapolis.  I took the first flight out from Hartford direct to Minneapolis at 6am and landed in MSP around 8am.  We picked up the rental car for this leg of the trip – an absolutely massive Toyota 4runner. I hung out at my friend’s place until another friends flight landed and then headed downtown to the venue and our hotel.  I was pretty wiped out from the day of travel and was asleep before the TV show I was watching even ended.

Friday was show day! One of the perks of being a member of Hanson’s fanclub is that you get to be let into the venue first.  When I got in line a couple of hours before doors, that line was relatively short and I made it in with plenty of time to easily find my balcony seat.  Allen Mack Myers Moore was once again the opener, though their time on the tour was coming to a close.

For the most part, this show started off similarly to most of the others I had been to so far, but I was pleasantly surprised that Isaac decided to do For Your Love. Of course he said he hadn’t yet done it this tour, but he’s not as great with Hanson setlist stats as I am 😉  Then there was a first – Zack Mack from AMMM joined the guys on stage playing harmonica for Dressed in Brown Eyes.   Taylor’s solo was once again Save Me – despite the fact that Rambling Heart was listed on the setlist. Zach Myers had been teasing about Reggie Willie (Zac’s character in the Don’t Let Me Down video) on social media all day, so when it took a bit longer than usual before the encore, we had a feeling that he was putting on the muscle suit. And that he was.  And for good measure he put a banana down his pants and then somehow got Zach Myers to take a bite of it (it ended up being thrown into the crowd.)

After the show we waited by the bus.  I was really mad at Taylor for doing Save Me again, but still ended up asking him for a photo at the bus (or maybe I just handed my phone to him while he was talking to some others about baby names and he knew what to do)  and Isaac came out as well and I got a photo with him. We saw Zac walking around a bit but he never ended up coming out to the barricades.

The next morning we headed for Fargo, North Dakota.  Since there’s essentially nothing to do in North Dakota they have a “last state club” since so many leave it for last when trying to visit all 50 states. Initially, that was the plan but when Hanson play a show in a new state, all plans go out the window so rather than it being #50 it was #31. (Hanson state #28)  We stopped at the visitors center, had dinner at Wurst Beir Hall and hit up a few murals in town before heading to the concert.  It was outdoors and at a brewery and no one had any idea what to expect – including the staff.  We started the show in the Box Car section but ended up moving into friends extra floor seats because the sight lines weren’t really great from the Box Car area once the crowd started filling in.  Zac ended up doing Fire on the Mountain as his solo after a friend requested it at her M&G.  The setlist said Isaac would be doing For Your Love again, but of course he decided to bust out River again instead.  Taylor finally did Rambling Heart in my presence. Since I had a seat, I decided I was going to time “jumping” up to stand for some of the show with Taylor’s jumping during If Only.  Except, somehow, he didn’t jump at all?  So this one will forever be the show where I jumped more than Taylor during If Only.  When there was a break in the set a song or so later, he explained that the stage was as trampoline and they were worried if they jumped they’d have gone flying into the crowd.

The show was at a brewery which led to a lot of drunken shenanigans with the crowd and a girl who was being escorted out for being too drunk ended up falling onto me and hitting my shoulder pretty hard on her way out. My friend told me that Taylor’s PSA about looking out for your friends was mostly due to the fact that she was so drunk in the first row. I’m all for having a drink or two at a show but know your limits and don’t ruin a good time for everyone else because you’re a loser who can’t hold your beer (literally and figuratively).

The venue is right on the train tracks (hence the ‘box car’ section) and since it was AMMM’s last night on the tour, they invited AMMM to join them on stage for a cover of “Long Train Runnin”  We didn’t stick around after the show at the bus and instead headed to Canada for our last show of this half of the run.

We got to the Canadian border and after some brief questioning were allowed to enter the country.  It was about 3am when we got to the hotel for the night.  Since I was reporter that evening we decided to take it easy and not do much of anything but hang out in the hotel room and finish up my list of questions.  When we go to the venue, I was sitting behind the Hanson.net Members Line in an effort to not get a last second sunburn before my photo with Hanson.  Their bassist, Andrew, came around the corner and asked me what part of Connecticut I was from. I told him and filled him in on the fact that one of my former coworkers was the father of one of his friends. Small world.  Except after he left – I wondered – how did he know who I was and where I was from?!  We had never talked about that before (in fact,  the story about my former coworker I had been wanting to tell him since 2017 and never had the opportunity!)

Then it was finally time to go in for my interview. As I approached them for my photo, I asked “are you ready for this?!” and they all laughed and Taylor said it reminded him of the song and started singing jock jams are you ready for this.  Then he asked me if I hadn’t been reporter before and I said that I had, but it was 18 years ago “ohh it’s been a minute” and then he asked me where I was from because he didn’t think I was from Canada so I told him No, I’m from Connecticut.  (How did Andrew know?!)

After the photo, they found a bench in the back of the venue that Isaac and I shared and Zac brought chairs down for him and Taylor to sit in and then threatened the staff that if they made noise while we were recording, he would beat them up.  We chatted a little bit before the interview officially started about their long stretch of driving coming up next and issues with the bus where I mentioned we were skipping the long drive shows but would be flying out for Vancouver, Seattle and Portland.  Isaac attempted to record the reporter interview and flubbed it, then tried again and continued to flub but Zac told him to just keep going (I think both he and I were worried we’d spend my whole interview time with Isaac trying to get it just perfect)

If you’re a Hanson.net Member, my interview is now posted in the archive!

After the interview the guys asked me a few more questions about the site and how I got the setlists and Taylor asked me if I had a request and I said “Lost Without You”.  At this point, we had held up doors opening on time (which my friends outside said was making them anxious but also that they knew it was because I was still talking to them so it was a good thing) and I was allowed to just stay inside.  I dragged one of the chairs Zac had brought to the front row and all my friends were able to join on either side of me.  Taylor did switch up his solo to Weird, but didn’t end up doing Lost Without You.  [Later I heard they had sound checked it twice in its entirety at the shows in Canada after this one]

My friend was able to snag me a setlist from the stage, but I noticed it had all the Calgary concert info on the top.  When Isaac came out for photos and signing I had him fix it (as well we add in Zac’s solo) and sign it.  The other 2 didn’t end up coming out, but the annotated setlist will be a nice addition to my photo and photo mat I had the guys sign after the interview!

The next day a couple of my friends had to work, so another friend and I went to the Zoo!  We heard they had polar bears AND mobility scooters and really you can’t beat that.  The polar bears did not disappoint and we probably could have stayed there all day watching them play and fight and sit on our heads, but we ended up having to rescue a friend from the airport and drive her back with us as apparently my flight delay luck rubbed off on her. (After we made fools of ourselves trying to pronounce all the dinosaur names)

After hitting up the Manitoba welcome center and checking out some touristy shops, we made our way back to MN with a stop back in ND for dinner on the way.  We had an off day on Tuesday before our final leg of the tour kicked off! Which hopefully will be posted quicker than this post was? But I also may just sleep for all of September and write nothing.  We’ll see…

RGB Tour – Leg 3

The 3rd leg of my tour was supposed to be the easy one off show in Cleveland. A friend had just moved there and while I had been to Ohio once on a family vacation around 20 years ago, I didn’t have it as a Hanson state.

I woke up at 3:15am, drove to the airport and got on my flight to Baltimore. It’s short, only about 50 minutes and not a decent length for napping, though I did try to sleep.  I made it to my next gate and when we were supposed to board, the gate agent said the aircraft was locked for maintenance. Something wasn’t right in the cockpit and they were waiting on parts and he kept saying “it could be 2 minutes or it could be 2 hours”.  While it appeared they were actively fixing something, an hour and 20 minutes after we were supposed to board the flight was canceled.

I ended up calling southwest as the gate agent line was lengthy and he was going to get me to St. Louis and then to Cleveland at like 11pm.  I asked if he could ticket me for that flight but that I’d keep looking at other options but it ended up disappearing, probably because a gate agent gave someone else the option first.

All the other airlines either had no options or were stupid expensive with layovers. It was only 6 hours driving so I booked a one way car (thanks to my great work discount!) And headed to the rental shuttle. Which took forever and a day to come. AVIS said they had no cars until 3:30 via the app but I was hoping if I showed up earlier they could help me out and I ended up getting an orange Nissan Kick.

By about 1:30 I was off, ETA 7:40. Having to make a couple of stops and dealing with 3 storms rolling through, I ended up dropping the car off around 8:30pm and my friend and her youngest son came to pick me up and then I went to sleep.

Saturday morning we went to check out downtown Chagrin Falls which is the area Bill Waterson known for Calvin and Hobbes is from. We went to a local bookstore and a popcorn shop and then the boys played at a park for a bit. I got pooped on by a bird.  After we were all sufficiently tired out, we headed home to nap before the show.

I had opted for front row Mezz seats for this show, not realizing it was a 100 year old venue with no elevator and steeply pitched stairs. Slow and steady we made it up to the mezz and then down to the front row.  The view was worth the effort though!  Except for when during Zac’s solo a spider appeared on the outer side of the plexi glass!

This was my first time (of 3) seeing AMMM and I enjoyed their set. It was nice to see Justin (now going by JR) from Ingram Hill again. I’m not even sure when the last time I saw IH play was, it’s been quite a while but back in 04/05 we used to see them quite frequently.

Then it was time for Hanson – who came out playing a song I didn’t recognize at first. They had a few opening songs this tour but this is the first time they started with “everybody needs somebody to love” which they had played for the first time this tour as the encore the night before. They also pulled out Great Divide for the set as well.

Zac’s solo (with special spider appearance) was Wake Up, which I can’t get mad at because even though I’ve heard it, at least it is from RGB. Isaac started his solo by talking about Hanson.net members and then said someone had requested Next Train. A girl up in the mezz stood up and screamed so we figured it was her! When Taylor waved and came up to the front of the stage I knew what he had chosen for his solo – Save Me, once again. I have 6 shows left and I’m hoping for a rambling heart one of them…

After the show we waited by the bus.  Zac was out first, but we couldn’t get closer than to get him to sign my friend’s shirt.  After he left, a bunch of girls left and we managed to get on the barricade.  I figured with my luck that meant no one else would come out, but we were pleasantly surprised with both Isaac and Taylor came out and I was able to get pics with them and my friend got her shirt signed by all 3!

We got back to my friends place around 2am and needed to leave at 9am to get me back to the airport.  I got through security pretty quickly although TSA made me pat down my own brace?  That’s a first.  My flight to Baltimore went fine even though the incoming flight was ‘tardy’. The incoming flight to get me in Baltimore was running a bit late so we ended up getting delayed about 20 minutes for boarding.  After we boarded, we seemed to be waiting to take off forever, to the point that I woke up from trying to nap to check my apps to see if anything was up, but the captain finally came on and said they were trying to stagger the planes going north east more so we had to wait a few minutes so there’d be less traffic.  When we landed, it was raining really hard and we were told that we had to wait because due to the storm there was lightning within 3 miles of the airport so all the ground personnel had to take cover so we had to wait a bit until they were allowed to come back out and get us to the gate.

I still have 4 more flights left this tour so I am hoping they all end up going smoothly.

RGB Tour – Leg 2

For the second leg of the RGB Tour we were more on my home turf, New England and NYC.  This series of shows also had a couple of milestones.  The Hampton Beach show was my 700th concert overall and the NYC show was my 250th Hanson show.  This was extra special because back in 1997, the radio stations were giving away tickets to an exclusive Hanson show at the Beacon Theater in NYC.  I tried and tried and tried to win these tickets, but in the end, didn’t end up being successful.  At the time, I didn’t think to “just show up” and see if I could get in that way and taking trips to NYC wasn’t a common thing with my family at this time.  That Beacon Theater show ended up being used throughout Hanson’s tour VHS, Tulsa, Tokyo and the Middle of Nowhere.  I ended up going to the Beacon several other times over the years – to see Penn & Teller, front row to see The Wanted and even seeing Hanson as part of their String Theory tour.  But I feel like after 25 years I was finally righting a wrong, as I had front row seats to see a proper Hanson show there.

But let’s start with Boston…

Initially I wasn’t going to Boston, it can be difficult for me to get to and the venue is across the street from Fenway Park and the Red Sox also had a game the night of the show.  I also had tickets to see Shawn Mendes, so I was going to skip and meet up with my friends in New Hampshire instead.  Then Shawn ended up postponing and then canceling his tour and when I looked for tickets there was a front row box seat still available so I crashed on my friend’s plans.  I was going to pick my friend up at the airport and then she was going to drive my car in to Boston – but Thursday afternoon we got word that her flight was delayed into the evening, so I was on my own with getting to Boston.  Fortunately I only had to drive about 5 feet into the city before getting into the parking garage at the Prudential Center.

Due to rain supposed to be coming in, we changed our dinner plans and went to Earl’s in the Prudential Center for dinner and spent about $200 between 3 of us.  Here I thought being home for part of this leg it would be the less expensive run!  The next day we did our original dinner plans for lunch at Buttermilk and Bourbon which is a New Orleans inspired Tapas experience.  We had a lot of delicious food to share.  When we left the venue, we tried to get a Lyft to go the mile or so up to the venue and it gave us like 5 different drivers (one even named Hansen) before we swapped over to Uber and finally made it as close to the venue as we could get.

A couple of nights before the Boston show the guys had debuted “Dressed in Brown Eyes” along with the opener John Calvin Abney.  Since we had 3 more shows with John we were hopeful we’d end up getting to see it and we were quite pleased that it made it as the encore in Boston.  We weren’t very pleased that we were now 4 for 4 with Isaac doing River and Taylor doing Save Me as solos.  We were even less pleased when a friend snapped a photo of the selist and we found out that Taylor’s solo was supposed to be “Truth” and followed by “With a Little Help From My Friends”.  We thought maybe they practiced it and it didn’t sound great and weren’t sure if that meant it would never see the light of day or if maybe it would show up later in the tour.

Overall the Boston show was a good one, but the section I was in was not into it at all. I am not sure the woman next to me even moved, which is fine, but she kept giving me looks when I was singing along and swerving my chair around to “dance”.  The vibe was just all off and almost somber.  Until…. MMMBop when a few girls somehow appeared behind me out of nowhere and in true Boston fashion, someone ended up spilling a drink on me. And then you wonder why I think Bostonians are obnoxious. They can’t drive and they literally can’t hold their liquor.  After the show the bus was pretty much chaos (and we missed seeing Zac in the bus door by about 10 seconds!) so we opted to just head back to the hotel.

Saturday morning we took it easy because we knew we had a late night drive ahead of us.  We made the drive up to Hampton Beach and the parking lot I wanted to park in said it was full, but I knew they had a few accessible parking spots which sometimes aren’t included in the count for “full” so we decided to drive in and see if we could get lucky and in fact we ended up finding an even better parking spot, with the bus right behind us.  While waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive, we saw Taylor drive his bus by and knew that he’d need to park it right behind us soon.  We ended up hanging around since we weren’t sure if my car would need to be moved to assist in the parking attempt and well, we didn’t really trust Taylor to safely drive past it either.  First Taylor came and assessed the situation and then pulled the bus in.  There were shouts of “WATCH THE RED CAR” and then some locals came by and finished directing him. When he was finished and we were all pretty impressed he said “You either do it, or you do it” I mean, yeah, I guess there wasn’t really another option there.  But for 10 minutes my anxiety was through the roof watching him. He, on the other hand, appears to be fearless.

After (finally) getting a late lunch we went to sit by the beach for a bit.  When we decided to maybe hit the arcade, we ended up in line waiting to see what they would do for ADA instead  and had a view of all the line drama and the staff trying to keep everything under control.  We weren’t sure if the Casino Ballroom would even have an ADA area and weren’t expecting to see much of the show, but were surprised we had a good spot off to the side of the stage.  Of note: Isaac decided to do Hand in Hand with no fake voting, but Taylor decided to do Save Me again.

ADA ended up being a show within the show as we were interrupted during Go by a medic due to a girl looking like she might end up passing out and needing to be walked out of the crowd. (We had a barricade behind us that she had made her way up against, so she wasn’t actually in ADA.)  Another point during the night a girl came running in and plopped herself down on one of the stools. When security asked if she was ADA she said “Eighty?” and then they had to get another security guard to escort her out of the area.  Also behind the barricade near us were a couple of kids, so Isaac jumped down off the stage at the end of the show and walked along the barricade to give high fives.  The barricade ended up leading him into the ADA area and he couldn’t figure out how to get out.  After they moved the barricade for him, he waved and said thank you to us and made his way backstage.

After the show we hung out by my car and decided to see where things were at around midnight since we had a long drive back to my house after.  In the end we stayed until 12:30, all 3 guys came out and my friend helped get my CD to Zac and Taylor so I could get all 3 signatures.  (I had previously gotten Isaac in Birmingham) We also made song requests for the NYC show and felt the most confident that Zac would try to play what we asked. (The requests were World Goes Around from Zac, Greener Pastures from Isaac and Truth from Taylor – and I told him we knew it was on the setlist in Boston.)

We made it back to my house at 3:30am and ended up taking a 12 something train into the city and a cab to our hotel.  We ubered closer to to the venue to meet some friends for dinner and then made our way to the Beacon.  Unfortunately it was surrounded in scaffolding so my marquee picture dreams were crushed.  I knew this show was going to a bit emotional on several levels – one being the last time I was there front row, was for my last time seeing The Wanted.  When I saw the hallway we had to wait in before the Wanted M&G I started to cry a bit. Fortunately it was all before the show and I was able to get it out of my system.  During John Calvin Abney’s set, he leaned down and said “Miss, do you know what time it is?” so I told him it was 8:25 and he said “25? I have time for one more song!” and finished up his set.  Hanson ended up taking the stage about 10 minutes earlier than usual and the end seemed a bit rushed so I think they had a hard 11pm curfew.  While I’ve been kind of annoyed that this tour seems to skew more towards MON than RGB – all those old MON songs hit differently this night, since I remember seeing so many of them over and over and over being played here on TTMON from the video they filmed back in 1997.  I somehow managed to push myself to stand for the entire show – figuring if Taylor did Save Me again, that would be my break.  But he ended up doing Truth – which has been converted from a guitar song to a piano song – the other 2 joined him for the end of it and then they went into With a Little Help From My Friends.  I’m not sure why they decided last second to cut it in Boston because it was AWESOME.  At the end of the show, they didn’t do a bow just the 3 of them which was disappointing because they would have been right in front of me and I would have gotten a great photo!

After the show we waited by the bus but it was straight up 1997 with the fans singing MMMBop. *eye roll*.  Taylor ended up coming out and driving his bus away and we called it a night and ubered back to the hotel, only to see Zac came out about half an hour or so after we left.  But after standing for an entire show and being 3 shows deep for the weekend, I was ready to lay down.

On the train back home in the morning I was getting texts from work and needing to be on site so I have had a wild week and have been unable to sleep in like I was hoping. But the blog is finished, the work week is almost done and I have to get packed to do it all over again this weeknd.

RGB Tour – Leg 1

With how many Hanson shows I am going to this tour I had to decide how to break up my blog posts.  Every show separate seemed excessive (and there wouldn’t be all that much new to say after each night) so I landed on doing one post per ‘leg’, of which I have 4.. or maybe 5…

Here we are after leg one – which included 3 shows – Nashville, Atlanta and Birmingham, a birthday and a trip to Buc-ees.

Thursday I had a direct flight from Hartford to Nashville. I was extremely anxious and nervous with the flight luck I had already this year, but I managed to get there without incident and met up with my friend.  We checked into our AirBnB that was home base for the trip and I spotted Daddy’s Dogs up the street (owned by a friend of Kris Allen’s) and so we had to go there for dinner. We also had a stand off with a spider in the lobby on the way to get the hot dogs because it was crawling a little too close to the exit door for our liking.

Friday we got off to a slower start and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe to get a bear (which was more than enough time spent on Broadway) – and then did a tour of the Ryman, where Hanson would be playing that evening.  The video before you start on your self guided tour was really cool and it was neat to learn so much about such a historic venue before going to the show that night.  At the end of the tour you are able to get a photo on stage, so we got a kick out of being able to have the Hanson RGB backdrop behind us.  As we were finishing up and getting ready to head to our dinner reservations across the street, Hanson came out to film something about the venue. They ended it with an acapella chorus of “This Time Around” – what an unexpected and fun surprise!

We went to dinner across the street at Sixty Vines which had a nice view of the Ryman and some great food as well. By the time we were done eating it was time to head into line for the show!  We headed to merch first since there were seats and we didn’t need to snag a good spot.  Our seats were the front row of the balcony and had a great view and great sound. Opening was John Calvin Abney. I was hoping to like him since I will be seeing him 6 times.  His guitar got messed up during one of the songs and kept making popping noises so he decided to just unplug it, hold it up near the mic, and keep on going.  While his music isn’t necessarily something I’d listen to, I was really impressed with him and how he thought on his feet and the crowd reaction clapping along with him and cheering was great too.

The setlist was very similar to what I was expecting based on what they had done in Europe on the previous leg of the tour.  Since Paul McDonald is from Nashville, he was at the show and joined the guys for the song he cowrote with Isaac on RGB – Write You a Song.  We were hoping they’d do something acapella since the venue was originally a church and built for acoustics and they came out and did “Change in my Life” with no mics completely acapella for the encore. (Even though a lot of the crowd didn’t seem to understand that they needed to be quiet.) Of note: They seemed to decide to last minute cut a song from the set (Penny and Me?) and Taylor jumped up to the drum platform to do something midway through his solo of Save Me.

The next day we had an early morning to drive to Atlanta.  Traffic was horrendous.  We stopped for lunch at Zaxbys, somewhere I had not been before. Then we pulled up to the hotel… which was not at all what we were expecting, nor was it in an area we’d want to be in after dark. After going inside anyway and being met by an incredibly rude staff, we started finding a new place to stay instead and ended up in a massive suite in midtown instead.

We got in line in Atlanta, where they had split Members Only and regular GA – but the GA line was in the shade and the members line was in the HOT HOT HOT Sun. (I figured out why they call it “hotlanta”!)  Finally we were let inside only to find out that the ADA areas left something to be desired.  Once the mezzanine filled in, the already no so great view became almost non existent.  But it is what it is (and the staff was wonderful and organized and the venue was really nice otherwise – especially the food!)

I was very happy that John Calvin Abney didn’t seem to have a script he was using for each show (at least not yet) like some of the openers in the past.  Hanson ended up shaking up the setlist a bit, starting with I’ve Got Soul, appropriately playing Georgia, then they added You Never Know to the mix followed by a cover of Low Rider that went into Ooh La La La. Where did that come from?!  Isaac has been allowing the crowd to vote on his solo but doesn’t give all the options beforehand and both nights it was Hand in Hand vs Deeper vs River – and River has won every night of the tour so far.  Zac seems to be mixing up his the most and it is much appreciated!  After 2 nights I had 2 new songs heard live, but I’m not sure for how long that will be sustainable.

After the show we waited by the bus. We had been told that Taylor came out very quickly and wasn’t going to have time to sign, but Isaac and Zac came out and we were able to get photos. Then there were all sorts of weird giant bugs hanging around and a small child walked up to us, pointed to the ground, said “bug” and walked away. (It was later stepped on.)  Turns out, Taylor is driving his own tour bus – or at least pulled it away from the Atlanta venue with him in the drivers seat.  I hope that there will be a driver joining the crew soon because that too seems like it’s not sustainable.

Our next day was an off day so we decided to go to World of Coke.  Probably not the best choice with it being a weekend, but fortunately my friend said she’d push me in a wheelchair which was the way to go once I saw how crowded it was. I never would have been able to deal with those crowds on my own. We ended the trip in the tasting room and took a spin through the gift shop where they had a funny Hanson-ish shirt – but all were 2XL.

We then met up with another friend and her family and got some ice cream before heading to Buc-ees.  Where I fell twice. Once I’m not sure why, though I was trying to get to a shopping cart to hold to have some stability and the second because someone had spilled something and my cane caught it. Fortunately no major injury – a skinned knee and a busted pinky.  At Buc-ees I managed to get some pressed pennies despite the machine not quite working, some snacks and dinner as well as a couple of t-shirts.

Then it was back to Nashville where Monday we had the day off and my friends put in a day of work.  We ordered in for lunch and headed to a brewery for dinner.

Tuesday was my birthday! We headed from Nashville to Birmingham. There wasn’t too much we wanted to do, but checked out some murals, had some BBQ for lunch at SAW’s and went to Rickwood Field, America’s Oldest Baseball Field. I had to be at the show early because I’d be meeting the guys for my BTTI make up photo.  We hit up Target and Walmart the night before looking for red, green, blue birthday hats and were successful.  At 5:30 I got my pass and at 6:30 it was time to go in.  The guys did not want to wear the hats, but said they would hold them, with Taylor being silly and holding his in one photo like an ice cream cone.  He said happy birthday to me so many times, all of the ushers became aware (I was wearing a sash too) and said happy birthday on my way out – and then some of them again on my way back in for the show!

We were second row for the show and there wasn’t really anything too different about this setlist.  Zac had switched up his solo all 3 shows.  Isaac played River all 3 shows and Taylor did Save Me all 3 shows – but for this show he started front and center (right in front of me) acapella, and then went back to the piano.  Different, but, I’d have preferred a totally different song.  Hopefully by the time my next shows roll around, they’ll have mixed things up a bit more again.

As we were getting ready to head out, I realized Isaac threw a pick right at my feet! That was my first time not being given a pick by someone else or finding it outside the venue after the show so that was a nice birthday treat!  We went and waited out by the bus again, assuming that Taylor once again had a long drive and wouldn’t come out.  Isaac did come out and signed my RGB CD and he mentioned that Zac wasn’t going to come out so once midnight hit and it was no longer my birthday, we made the trek back to Nashville, getting back about 3:30am only to be leaving for an airport drop at 7:30am.

My Nashville friend had to go to work so even though there was 3 of us leaving there was just one airport drop. My flight was the latest out so I sat there delirious for a couple of hours until we finally boarded at 10:35 where I promptly fell asleep and was asleep so hard I have 0 recollection of the plane ever taking off. I woke up mid flight confused due to some turbulence but otherwise it was a great flight home.  The only problem was, I brought the southern heat home with me and we have been in the middle of a heat wave ever since!

Hanson Day 2022

Wednesday, May 11,  I made my way to Westchester County Airport in White Plains to begin my trip to Tulsa.  For whatever reason, Delta had no options out of Hartford with longer than a 40 minute layover and the ones out of White Plains were 3+ hours each way.  When it was about time to board I overheard someone talking about “lots of damage” and figured I’d end up going 0 for 4 on trips this year going smoothly.  I was right.  It turns out the plane I was set to board had hit a bird (“a big bird”) on its way into NY and they needed to call someone to inspect it and clear it for flying before we could board. With the talk of damage I thought for sure we’d need to wait for a new aircraft, but fortunately once someone came on site it was cleared and we were only delayed about an hour. (Good thing for that 4 hour layover in Atlanta, I guess.)

I met up with a friend upon landing in Tulsa and we go the shuttle to the hotel.  I immediately changed out of my plane clothes to hit up Ida Red for some special T-Shirts they had made, but ended up getting distracted by spotting Taylor on the sidewalk outside the studio.  I said hey, got a quick pic, made it to Ida Red only to find out they already sold out of all the shirts (what!? hardly anyone was even in town) and met up with friends for dinner at The Tavern.

Thursday I lined up early for the store and was able to get almost everything I wanted (one item was the wrong thing but hopefully customer service will be correcting that for me!) being one of the first ones in there.  I ended up doing some volunteering and then it was time for HTP Live.  This is the first time that they had done it, and one of my friends got to be one of the reporters to interview them so that was really cool.  We weren’t entirely sure how it was going to work or if it was going to be running on time, but it did end in time to remove the chairs for karaoke!  Isaac has been hosting karaoke for the past few years but this time it was 90s themed and people really went all out with their outfits for it.  I liked the 90s throw back songs way more than the excessive Hanson songs, but it’s a Hanson event so of course that’s what most of the fans are most comfortable performing.

Friday I did some more volunteering and then we had the RGB Listening Party. On first listen, not a huge fan, but it always takes me a few listens to have songs really grow on me. I did miss the harmonies we are so used to hearing though.  Then it was time for the Storytellers Concert – which started off a bit like BTTI part 2 – but fortunately after a couple of songs they changed their direction in a way that made me happy. We’ve always sort of known that MMMBop came from a part in an older song called Boomerang.  Recently discussion about it had come up again on the Hanson.net forums and someone had mentioned that they did a part of it during “The Story” at 5 of 5 in London and I had gone looking for some crappy YouTube footage of it.  Getting to see it all in its entirety was really awesome since they hardly ever play the songs they had written before Middle of Nowhere.  They also threw their shortest song, Watershed, into the set which I had previously heard just once before.  I was a bit disappointed we didn’t get any of the new EP “White Rabbit” especially since Zac had mentioned he had a story about one of the songs (and what better time to tell that than during Storytellers?) but I understand that they put most of their focus into working on the setlist for the RGB Tour.

After the show was the Dance Party – I was giving out glosticks at the door and by the time my “shift” ended, Taylor had decided the equipment was not working and that we’d have a redo the next night instead.  Got 1 photo in my care bear outfit I made just for the dance party… so that was a bit of a bummer.

Saturday we had the ST Leaders lunch with Hanson and due to some communication issues, we were *just* about to eat by the time the guys came in to talk to us.  If you told 12 year old me I would be in a room with Hanson and would opt to stuff my face with pizza instead of engage in conversation with them, she’d have been horrified. Isaac did talk about movies with my group for a bit, but I figured it was the safer bet to not let me get to level “hangry”.  We ended up going to local brewery Nothing’s Left next as they were doing a Hanson collab/inspired flight with 3 sour beers – red, green & blue.  (Blue was my fave) I also had to get my fave stout of theirs, Deez Nuts and then they had a pineapple dole whip as well so… of course.

Then it was nearly time for the “Members Only” show.  While this show typically has more members only content, it was the unofficial kick off to the RGB tour so it was…. lots of singles.  Not my favorite for a trip to Tulsa but as I always say I’d rather be at a Hanson concert than anywhere else, and having most of my friends back by my side made it just a bit sweeter.  I do hope they will end up rotating in and out more RGB songs (maybe through solos) on tour though.

After the concert it was time to try and find food – ended up with MORE PIZZA! And then Taylor’s 2nd attempt at the after party.  This one was a success but I did not have time to change into my dance party outfit again.   (I did still manage to be on theme since I was wearing Chuckie from Rugrats shirt)

Sunday I met up with some friends at the Tulsa Drillers game.  When the visiting team took the lead of 3-0 in the top of the first, but the drillers got 2 back to make it 3-2 after the first, I thought this might be a nice back and forth game.  Unfortunately the Rough Riders kept pounding out HRs and in the end the Drillers lost 18-4.  But most of us were just baseball fans and not really rooting for either team, so having some downtime to chat while at the game was nice compared to the usual hustle and bustle going on Sundays during HDay weekend that is Hop Jam.

 

Monday I managed to fly home without incident (aside from no one with a wheelchair ever picking me up at the gate in Atlanta) and the shuttle to the parking lot was there waiting for me.  Apparently they had even called looking for me while I was trying to figure out how to reach my luggage on the carousel.  Of course, 2 seconds after we got out of the shuttle, it started sprinkling which gave way to a sudden downpour as I tried to load all my luggage back into my car.  There also was news spreading of a few friends having tested positive for Covid upon arriving home. I joined that club as well. 10 days later I tested negative again and blame the delay of this post on that.  I’m still not 100%, but getting better every day.

 

 

Back to the Island 2022

 

Back to the Island 2022… I’m not going to lie, in the days leading up to this trip I was seriously hoping it would be canceled so I wouldn’t have to cancel it myself.  There was so much stress and anxiety about getting a negative covid test to get into the country (even though I went nowhere for 10 days before I left, other than for my covid tests of course) and what would happen if I tested positive while I was there and needed to quarantine for 5-14 days.

But I finally had a negative PCR and Antigen result in hand and was ready to go to sleep at 8pm for a 2am wake up when Southwest emailed me that my flight from Hartford to Baltimore was canceled.  I considered driving 4 hours to Baltimore and cutting out the Hartford portion (since I’d be returning through Baltimore too) but some friends were leaving out of Boston on American Airlines so I last second booked a brand new flight and Southwest rescheduled me for 2 days later when I was panicking.  Arriving 2 days later wasn’t going to cut it, so I canceled that flight and hit the road to Boston to meet a friend. (Shout out to her for staying up all night to wait for me to get there and then for it to be time to go to the airport for a 5am flight #teamnosleep)  We made it there without any other hiccups and got the shuttle to the resort. [Now to wait and hopefully get reimbursed by my travel insurance for all the last minute expenses *fingers crossed*]

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Hanson Listener’s Choice Shows

The first weekend in October was my 7th trip to Tulsa in the past year and what I believe to be my final trip there for 2021.  The themes for this weekend were ATW + Listener’s Choice which meant that we voted on 20 songs via Twitter that would be included in the setlist.  Setlist voting is not my favorite thing because generally the songs I want to hear aren’t included and of those that are included, the ones I would prefer to hear don’t win.  But initially I didn’t think I’d be going 3 out of 4 months so I thought this would be a nice “overview” setlist of sorts.

I made it to Tulsa without incident, but unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for my friends.  The friends I was rooming with were supposed to be getting in late on Thursday, which ended up getting bumped to mid-day on Friday (the day of the first show)  I think I saw them maybe 3 hours the whole weekend.

Friday morning Hanson did a live chat before they released their single for the month, One, and mentioned that these shows would be the longest ones of the series and that they’d be very similar each night.  I was hoping that we would be getting 10 voted songs + 6 songs from Against the World with a handful of “Hanson’s Choice” each night – but they instead decided to do all 20 voted songs + 6 from Against the World BOTH nights.  Now don’t get me wrong, there’s no place I’d rather be than a Hanson concert, but I was pretty meh about it and kind of grumpy through the whole Friday night show.  One of the fans next to me was getting so excited and had pure joy as a reaction for several of the songs as they started and I was wondering if maybe I was the problem and I have gone to too many shows.  (There had been some discussion online about if you’re mad about the song choices you’ve gone to too many shows.)

For Saturday’s show I was hoping they would mix up the order and what was acoustic and what the encore songs were, and they did.  I don’t know what I did to adjust my attitude – but I strongly preferred show #2 to show #1 and it truly did feel like 2 different shows entirely, despite the fact that the songs were essentially the same.  They also did an acoustic version of If Only so there was no jumping and that was a big plus as well.  Unfortunately my excitement was short lived, as I got run over by a motorized wheelchair while we were trying to clear out the ADA area.  I’m ok, but I was a bit sore and stinging after the show and did have a bruise afterwards.

Getting home was also uneventful, which I was glad about.  I decided to order myself some BBQ from one of my favorite places here in CT that has a location near the airport.  It was torture smelling it the whole hour ride home, but definitely worth the wait.

I am looking forward to some Hanson tour dates being announced hopefully by the end of the year? Maybe? But if not, there’s always Back to the Island to hold me over until then.

Tulsa September

Initially I wasn’t intending on going to Tulsa for the September shows, in addition to holiday weekend flight prices being ridiculous I was trying to tell myself that 4 out of the 8 shows was enough.  Well, after the August shows, even with Tulsa holding me hostage for another day, when I got home I decided to book for September. (And now am kind of kicking myself for not trying for July as well – although those flights were ridiculously priced or else I probably would have caved.)

The night before I was supposed to take off, the remains of Tropical Storm Ida came to my area and gave us a month’s worth of rain in one night.  There was massive amounts of flooding and I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to the airport, but fortunately I did.  My flight out was at 8am and I saw that the 6am flight still had not left yet (despite it being almost 7) It turned out 4 days ago their plane had hit a bird and whatever fix they had done got undone in the trip to Hartford so they were delayed while it could be fixed again.  They did not end up leaving until 9:30am and I was very glad for once I didn’t opt for the super early flight.  I had 2 little kids in front of me during the first flight that were making up songs about the trip with lyrics such as “we are riding on a plane plane plane and it will be fun!”  And I think they did have fun – until their ears started popping.  There was also a lot of other layover drama with a woman who didn’t know how to order Five Guys and didn’t order fries (but a stranger gave her hers, which was sweet but… covid?), a guy whose mother passed away getting in a “YOU WERE MEAN TO MEEEE” argument with a gate agent, a family missing their flight by mere minutes and then more littles in front of me on flight #2. (So sleeping did not really happen.)

Thursday night I was hoping to go see the Tulsa Drillers baseball game since I was in town, but it was supposed to be mid-90’s at game time and that didn’t seem like a fun way to spend my evening. (They lost, 10-1) so I ended up ordering some BBQ and hanging out in the room watching Big Brother and Netflix.

Between the excessive amounts of trips to Tulsa and the heat, Friday my only time leaving the room was to go to Antoinette’s bakery for a sack of treats.  Friday night’s show was Shout It Out and it was a pretty decent set (until it wasn’t?)  I got to hear 2 songs for the first time – Hard to Handle and the new single, Stronger, which I opted to not listen to until hearing it live.  I ended up regretting that decision slightly because it was hard to really hear/understand the lyrics and I think that it would have been better if I listened to it just once before the show.  Personally, I would have rathered skipping out Where’s the Love and Man From Milwaukee for something else a bit rarer, but it’s not my job to put the setlists together. (Yet?)  But overall it was a solid show and I had just thought to myself that morning they hadn’t played “I Was Born” in what seemed like a while so I was happy it made it into the set. They did skip 1 song from Shout It Out – Zac’s “Use Me Up”.

Saturday afternoon we decided to check out Nothing’s Left, a brewery that has beer slushies.  I tried a Cotton Candy Chaos IPA which was too bitter for my liking and Deez Nuts Stout which was peanut butter / chocolate and soooo good. I also tried the dole whip soft serve – totally worth the trip right there – but the Strawberry Pina Colada slush I didn’t particularly like as it tasted “too beer-y”.

Night 2 was the Anthem show.  I was really looking forward to hearing Lost Without You as full band and not a Taylor solo, and I was able to get my wish. This set didn’t have anything I hadn’t heard before, but I was able to go into hearing Stronger again with having watched the video and heard the studio version and was able to appreciate it more.  Before Isaac’s solo, he talked a bit about how he is fans of his brothers.

“So Zac said, oh, you can’t stop us is a hard one to follow. I will go with that’s harder to follow [Zac’s solo]. So I’m going to say something that is, well, I’m going to say what I was thinking. So, one of the coolest things about being in this band is being able to be a fan of the people you are on stage with. I am a big fan of songs that Taylor brings to the table and helps us be a part of in some way or another. Sometimes it’s just little things and sometimes it’s lots of things. But it’s really fun. The same for Zac. When he sits down and goes, here’s this idea and it just wrecks me and I go, well that lyric is brutal and beautiful and important and I love it. So I feel lucky to be in a band with guys that I can be big fans of. So hopefully they feel the same way. No pressure. haha”

I would have liked if they stuck to the setlist and did Tonight as the encore, but it is what it is.  (Friday night I watched them change the setlist out on stage 2 times, so there were 3 versions, it seems like they weren’t really able to make up their minds on what to play and I’m very curious to know what else might have been swapped out!) I also didn’t even realize they had completely skipped Tragic Symphony and Annalie until some fans were talking about it after the show!

After the show we waited for the guys to come out and my friend had gotten me a setlist so I was able to get that signed.  It was very, very pushy and I didn’t feel stable enough to try and get any photos with the guys this time.

Sunday I had a 3 hour layover in Atlanta and when I got through TSA in Tulsa they pulled my backpack, apparently the croissant from the bakery I hadn’t yet eaten and decided to bring home with me was suspicious. After landing in ATL I needed to get to A18, by the time I reached A18 it got changed to A33 which was nearly the last one in the hallway… and then found out nope, I actually needed to be at B7.  Good thing I had such a long layover!  Things were much calmer on the way home as well and I made it back to my house by 9:30pm instead of my usual 1am.

I have a lot more concerts coming up this month and then another trip to Tulsa at the end of the month… I’m going to be exhausted…  I don’t know how I used to do this constantly!

Is this Heaven? No, it’s Iowa.

I’m not really sure what I was thinking picking a 5am departure time to go to Iowa. I got to the airport before precheck was even open and of course my brace set off the scanner and I had to take it off to push it through the x-ray.  I had 2 young boys in front of me on the plane that honestly were not all that obnoxious at all, I slept through most of the flight but one of the boys said “sorry how we acted on the flight when you were trying to sleep” when he got off and I assured him he was fine. (I’ve had to put up with much worse!)

My layover was in Chicago and the gates were supposed to be directly across from each other but of course that was not the case by the time I landed and they also had no wheelchair waiting like I was told they would when we took off. It also made me do a sleepy double take when I was waiting on if I was going to get wheeled or walk and everyone was talking about Tulsa!  For once, I was not headed to Tulsa! lol I made it to my new gate and waited to board the tiny plane to Cedar Rapids. When they sent me down the jet bridge at first I thought a van was waiting at the bottom, surely it was too small to be a plane! But no, it was a plane.  Also strange was one of the guys on my flight out of Hartford was on the flight too – seated next to me!

Upon landing I found my friend and we were on our way! We made 2 stops in Cedar Rapids, the Czech bakery Sykora and a scrapbook shop. At the bakery I opted for a poppy seed kolache. They didn’t have any of the cookies like my Nana used to make, so I couldn’t compare, but the kolache was very good!  The scrapbook store was supposed to open at 10am but no one was there at 11 so we left, turns out they had a miscommunication with who was supposed to be working so we left for Dubuque before they opened at 11:15. Ah well.

In Dubuque we did the Fenlon Elevator which is the shortest and steepest of its kind. It is 5 steps up and out of the car and then 5 steps back down in to go down. I braved it and tried to take a video looking down (I don’t recommend doing that) but never actually hit record!  Figures… We also went to see the historic shot tower and drove around a bit to see the port.  After a 5am flight I was exhausted so most of the time was spent in the hotel. (And the 2 stops we did make were my only 2 on the ‘to do’ list anyway.)

Monday morning we got up and headed to Dyersville for the Field of Dreams.  We started with a tour of the house and then wandered the corn fields, ball field and gift shop. I loved the gift shop because it had a lot of “baseballism” shirts that would go over the head of anyone who isn’t a big baseball fan.   They were taking down the MLB field but we were told next year they’d play again and it would be the Cubs. While I enjoyed watching the game, I’m not sure if it’s something that should be yearly because it will kind of kill the thrill about it, but hey if it makes money MLB is going to be all about it.  There’s also a museum about the film but was unfortunately closed on Monday so we just took a photo of their mural on the side of the building.

Next up was Ames where we went to the gardens to see the butterflies and the world’s largest (concrete) gnome.  The butterfly garden was a lot of fun chasing the butterflies (and them chasing my cane) and trying to get pictures of them. The garden had an exhibit of origami statues so we tried to find all of them while making our way to Elwood (the gnome). I thought the admission prices were a bit steep, but it was a nice mile or so stroll through the gardens and they were absolutely beautiful so when you think about the cost of upkeep, that’s probably where most of the admission price is going to.  They also offered free scooter and wheelchair rentals which right there made the admission worth it for those who might need it – and made the gardens a whole heck of a lot more accessible for everyone and I certainly can’t be mad about that!

Then we made our way to Des Moines to get ready for the Iowa State Fair the next day.

We got to the fair about 1pm which was probably the hottest part of the day and started with some cookies and fried cheese curds.  We also had fried pickles and corn dogs and I had lots and lots of water.  I’d have wanted something stronger, but driving the scooter around all day with people who were freaking oblivious was not going to end well if I was a little tipsy.  (I am not sure why all the responsibility of driving it has to fall on me and no one else has to pay any attention at all and can be mad if/when I run into them – WHEN I HAVE NO BRAKES – but it is what it is.)  At one point we heard the Beach Boys start soundcheck along with John Stamos singing “Forever” and then we heard Hanson join them for Where’s the Love.  A bit later Hanson took the stage for their own soundcheck so we knew that Hanson would most likely be doing Where’s the Love with the Beach Boys and not part of their set.

Finally 7pm came and doors opened. None of the volunteers knew what to do at all… but we managed to get our wristbands and get the scooter parked and I got to my 4th row seat that was pretty much dead center.  Most of the people in front of me sat for Hanson and I was able to sit for the whole show and still be able to see!  I hadn’t used my camera in so long, it was nice to be getting some decent photos again.  I was surprised that Hanson didn’t play any of their 4 new singles – nor did they even mention that they had a new project coming out in November when they had a whole crowd of potential new fans in front of them… but it is what it is.  They also kind of seemed to mess up a bit during Thinking ‘Bout Somethin’ but quickly found their groove.

For the Beach Boys set, I felt wildly out of place.  Most of my peers know the Beach Boys from their parents being fans, but my parents were not fans so the only songs I knew were the ones that were really, really big or covered elsewhere (or featured on Full House!) Even with the lyrics being put up on the big screen for a lot of the songs, I didn’t really sing along.  But the guy behind me was absolutely having the time of his life singing off beat and off key along to every.single.word.  I was also masked for the entire concert because despite it being outdoors, everyone was squeezed in a little bit too close for my comfort. So as long as I bopped my head along to the beat, no one really knew if I was singing along or not 😉  (There’s your pro tip for the day lol)

For the Beach Boys encore, Hanson came back out, as we expected – but Mike Love said that John Stamos liked to play Summertime Blues so they started with that song (one that Hanson knows well and has been covering on their tours on and off since 1998 – and was probably included in many of their pre-fame sets as well!) and then went into Where’s the Love as well as Fun, Fun, Fun.  It certainly was Fun, Fun, Fun to see everyone up on stage and having an absolute blast.  Despite surge pricing, I managed to find an Uber and get back home to the hotel just after midnight.

 

My flight out of Des Moines was not until 4pm but hotel check out was noon so I got to the airport super early.  Despite nearly every piece of signage in the airport saying “mask up” the guy in front of me did not have his on and TSA made him put it on before checking his ID.  Then he took it off AGAIN to go through the metal detectors and had to pull out all his bags to find it again and he said he was told he could take it off.  (Uh, no, 3 people told you to put it on…)  Turns out that wasn’t their most problematic passenger of the day – I was.  My purse went through fine, my brace set off the metal detector (belts were setting it off too so it was on a higher setting than I’m used to) so while I waited for a female assist, I saw my bag get pulled off the line.  They started saying something was stuck and my cane never made it through so I had to show them where it was and get one of the agents to retrieve it off the conveyor belt.  My suitcase apparently had something “bad” in it, but the 2nd agent said he didn’t see anything and was giving me it back. This set off a wild afternoon where: a guy walked into the ladies room just ahead of me and panicked and ran out when I walked in, I got bitched out by a lady who thought I was cutting her for the elevator when she was in a wheelchair and had no one to push her, watched a lady have a meltdown in the bathroom about needing to wear a ‘face diaper’ until January, tried to avoid getting touched by the way too many children at my gate who were fascinated by me, fell out of a wheelchair and watched a guy walk through the McDonalds drive thru.  But I made it back to my own bed by 2am only to awake to pouring rain from a Tropical Storm.  Maybe someday I will be caught up on my work emails…

 

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