Not me! I’m pissed now - South Carolina is getting other people’s fair dregs.
They’re supporting Journey at the Iowa State Fair. Other headliners include Kelly Clarkson, Brooks and Dunn, and Peter Frampton.
The San Diego County (Del Mar) Fair usually has some pretty decent acts, often for free. I’ve seen Frampton, Joan Jett, Hall and Oates, Grand Funk Railroad (Mark Farner version) and Joe Walsh on the Grandstand Stage. Far from being awful, every one of those shows were great fun with tremendous audience reactions.
Las Vegas gets lots of these acts year-round, mostly in locals’ casinos (like the Station Casino chain) and they perform either outdoors or in small halls. Tickets prices are usually a good indication of how good they still are - if the tickets are really cheap or free, you get what you pay for. I saw AMERICA (remember the song, A Horse With No Name) for free and they were so horrible that I, and most of the audience, left after about the third song. But casinos are not stupid - if the act is still pretty good, expect to pay about $50 to see these acts live in those smaller casinos.
But as mentioned, a lot of the groups are pretty good and what else do they have to do? At least performing live at small venues pays their mortgages and they can make a very nice living doing the 6 month tour…their recordings are probably no longer selling much, so live performance is their only source of income.
It varies from band to band. Some of these guys know they’re washed up has-beens, and are just trying to make a buck. Others believe they’re still just as good as ever, and hope that, with a few lucky breaks and a new hit single, they could eventually be back on top.
Let’s face it, just ten years ago, many of us would have told Carlos Santana “Time to pack it in, dude! You haven’t had a hit in years! You don’t have a future!”
Well, it turns out he DID have a future!
Now, will REO Speedwagon ever have the kind of big comeback Santana had? Probably not! But it’s a safe bet they’re STILL making a lot more money than you or I make each year. If they can make a decent living doing something they enjoy- even if it’s in front of only a few hundred people- why shouldn’t they keep doing it?
Or… put it another way. You think Foreigner are washed-up has-beens, and maybe they are. But I’ll bet they STILL get way more fans at an average concert than Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith or Leonard Cohen do. Is anybody telling THEM, “Pack it in, you’re embarrassing yourselves?”
A lot of these people simply like to perform. Also, who would have thought the Beach Boys would have a hit song in the 1980s with “Kokomo?” You never know. According to members of Styx having their songs in commercials and video games like Rock Band have brought them a new generation of fans.
The B-52s performed at Riverfest in Little Rock, Arkansas this year. I believe ZZ Top has played at Riverfest as well.
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I’m pleasantly surprised by the responses so far. My impression of most corndoggers was that they give a suckluster performance and they sound tired and unenthusiastic (slurred singing, strained vocals trying to hit high notes, forgetting the lyrics, etc.) and look awful and haggard from years of the hard life that is rock and roll (drugs, touring, etc.) Either that, or the majority of the band does not respesent the original line-up and they don’t sound at all faithful to the band’s original style. Maybe I should check out that Foreigner show or see who else is playing at this year’s Western Idaho Fair.
Looks like we’re also getting Rodney Atkins (never heard of him), The Four Tops (not my style of music), and Blake Shelton, whose name does not ring the tiniest bell with me, either. Looks like it’ll be Foreigner if I go at all.
Blake Shelton sang that song about the tracking dog in prison.
I mean, if you want to go.
I saw Blue Oyster Cult at a small club a few years ago. One of the band members said something along the lines of “We started our career all living in the same house and eating Spanish rice every day. We’d rather not finish our career doing the same thing.”
Blake Shelton also sang that song about Austin, the lovelorn answering machine messages song.
At the moment, I’m pretty sure guitarist Mick Jones is the only original member still touring with Foreigner. Jason Bonham, son of the late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, wastheir most recent drummer.
They may or may not sound very good- I merely suggest that, before you go to see any band on the Corny Dog Circuit, you make sure that at LEAST a few original members are still there. I once went to see “Asia,” and it turned out to be just keyboard player Geoff Downes and 3 guys who were probably in diapers when Asia released their first album.
I don’t know if they have corn dogs at the Prairie Meadows racetrack and casino near Des Moines, but B. B. King, Kenny Rogers, and Z Z Top are coming.
The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake has upcoming shows from Kevin Costner’s band, as well as Little River Band, Leon Russell, and Clint Black.
We saw Styx at a fair about five years ago. Tommy Shaw was fronting. My husband said that only two members of the band were from their heyday.
It’s sad to see anyone sink to the music low that is Payette. My condolences to Dokken.
The Speedwagon stops not only at fairs, but at conventions. I occasionally attend the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando as a guest of Long Time First Time, and Kevin Cronin was with REO the year the band performed there. (We didn’t see the show, but heard afterwards that Keep On Loving You, Take It on the Run, and the other hits sounded as good as they did when originally recorded.)
Oh really? I attend a HUGE folk fest (leaving for it tomorrow matter of fact) and he was a BIG DRAW a few years ago…
Blue Ash is a decent-sized suburb of Cincy. A few years ago, the Blue Ash Fourth of July fair featured Richard Marx (remember “Don’t Mean Nothin’” from the 80’s?) He sounded pretty good and seemed to be giving it his best. He was getting into his signature number, the finale of his show, and I was even kind of liking the song… right up until the point when the Fourth of July fair one town over started their fireworks, Marx thought Blue Ash was starting theirs early, and he stopped in mid-verse. The band just ground to a halt, while the very close, very loud fireworks from the next town exploded overhead. Marx looked at the band, the band seemed perplexed, and then they picked up right where they left off and finished the tune, while the fireworks went on behind them. I felt bad for him.
Back in the late 80’s, I saw “Bill Haley’s Comets” playing a rinky-dink Fourth of July fair in a crummy town outside St. Louis. Bill Haley himself had, of course, died nearly a decade earlier. That didn’t stop the band from billing themselves as “Bill Haley’s Comets”. That was an ignominious legacy for one of the men responsible for rock and roll.
NC State Fair in October:
Jason Michael Carroll
Kellie Pickler
Eric Church
Third Day
Nat and Alex Wolff
Jamey Johnson
The Temptations featuring Dennis Edwards
Julianne Hough
Jeremy Camp and Christian group Tenth Avenue North
Blake Shelton
They only have 1 old time act, I think in the past they had 2 or 3 older artists.
These guys will be at a local… bar… I guess you would call it.
This place has lots of faded heavy metal 80’s acts (Firehouse and SKid Row were recently here.).
Oddly I think it’s a country bar by trade (Acts like John Michael Montgomery and Confederate Railroad seem to dominate the “Coming Soon” marquee) I always thought this was an odd mix.
Yup, Shaw and James Young. They “divorced” Dennis DeYoung a few years back. John Panozzo (the original drummer) died in '96. Chuck Panozzo (the original bassist) is HIV-positive, and is only a part-time member of the band now. I’ve seen them twice here in the Chicago area in the past year, and Chuck played the last third or so of both concerts.
Kelly Clarkson is still at the top of her career, producing top selling songs. Why is she on the State Fair circuit?
Willie Nelson played at the Electric Cowboy (bar) in Little Rock in 2008.
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