Hanson in Durant and New Buffalo
Shows 3 & 4 were Hanson in Durant, OK and Hanson in New Buffalo, MI. After Casey Abrams, I made my way up to the airport to stay at the attached hotel, which I hadn’t done before. I was able to get from my room to the TSA Pre-check line in 10 minutes. The line was quite long, but I still managed to get through in another 10 minutes and then had time before my flight to Dallas would take off. I was meeting a friend so I made my way to the car rental center, we got the car, stopped for some food and made our way to the Choctaw Casino in Durant, OK. We wandered around a little bit, found some plugs to charge our phones, went to eat at the cafe and then made our way back to the theater area for doors. I was front row for the show and fell victim to FOMO and Ticketmaster’s Platinum pricing. The venue had a screen behind the stage and kept changing the scenery in the background. We were underwater, in lava, in a lava lamp, there were love scenes and hearts and it was pretty amusing. The setlist was pretty standard, although we did get an Isaac solo of “Begin Again”. Taylor seemed to be having trouble with his mic stand and had to hold the mic while it got fixed by their crew.
After the show we hit up the bakery, hung out with some friends before making our way back to TX to hit up Buc-ees and then try and get some sleep before returning the car and flying from Dallas to Chicago. Upon our arrival in Chicago we were picked up by a friend and went to her place to nap before heading to New Buffalo for pre-show dinner.
During the New Buffalo show, they flubbed the words to TWO songs which was pretty surprising. Taylor forgot I Will Come To You (again) and Isaac forgot Cold as Ice and my friends had to yell the next line to him to get him back on track.  I thought that this setlist was better than the night before, we got a full band River, A Song To Sing with the extra verse, Get Up and Go and an encore of Hey. After the show Taylor hosted another after party, but I was able to see him from outside sitting at a slot machine, so I didn’t bother going in. We hung out at a bar until the dance party ended so I could just kind of chill after my whirlwind last few days.
Afterwards we went to stay at my friend’s childhood home and on Sunday we did a tour of the area, ending up in Holland and then at her grandmother’s and Dad’s houses as well.
Monday we headed back to Chicago for our flights home. Mine ended up nearly an hour delayed, but fortunately no other issues. It was definitely a whirlwind few days!