We all have different tastes, but to me Jon Batiste is a genius.
Apologies. With so few posts in this thread, I hadn’t noticed that it had been bumped after 17 years. My bad.
That’s a great pairing.
Is that in Puyallup? I’ve never made it there, but all my Seattle friends love it.
I’d see Culture Club, Chicago and Weird Al, in the category of “bands I loved but couldn’t afford to see when I was a teenager”.
I saw Weird Al at Six Flags (for free) and at the Illinois State Fair (don’t know what I paid but doubtless it was reasonable). No matter how low-rent the venue, Al gives his all and then some. No complaints.
I’ve seen Styx, Kansas, Cheap Trick, and Og knows who else at the Illinois State Fair, the Sangamon County (Illinois) Fair, Western Illinois University’s concert space, and countless other 2nd or 3rd or 6th-tier venues. They’ve all been extraordinary shows.
Twice in my life have I been disappointed with a concert. The first was back in my days as an Evangelical Christian Teen, this Christian rap group called DC Talk was playing. These guys made New Kids on the Block sound like Gangsta Rap. The other was when the lead vocalist for Kansas made a joke about drinking and driving and not getting caught, during his badinage with the crowd. I’m no prude, but having lost an aquaintance to drunk driving, I was miffed.
Twice this summer will they be within an afternoon’s drive of me. However, the Springfield (MO) date is on a Wednesday, and I just can’t see a concert 2.5 hours away on a work night. They’ll be at the Lake of the Ozarks on a Friday or Saturday, but the venue is outdoors and it will be either raining or hot, one or the other, and I’m too old for that shit.
We have BILLY IDOL, 70 years old, bless his heart, coming to do a show this summer at an amphitheater. Every touring days-gone-by act makes a stop. There’s a charge, this is is separate from the state fair where acts are free. This year the bands of interest to me are Flo Rida, The Commodores, ZZ Top, Melissa Etheridge, a bunch of others I don’t really know. And for the 16th year in a row, we have Hermans Hermits !!! A couple years ago, I had a friend, a grandpa in his 70’s, show up early in the morning and stake out a seat on a bench right up front for HH’s 2 p.m. show.
Oregon State Fair has All Time Low, Uncle Kracker, Twisted Sister and Weird Al.
…I had some whiplash with this thread not realizing it was a zombie…
I am really curious in 20 years…1. will state fairs still be a thing…and 2. who will play them? A lot of these acts were BIG in a different age of music where pop music was just more broad and because we only had radio and MTV/VH1 even if you didn’t like these performers you were aware of them.
Music today is so balkanized, there’s only going to be a handful of artists with broad enough appeal that might bring people in because “Oh I remember them.”
Like in 2040, is the Puyallup Fair line up going to be Tame Impala, Benson Boone, Tate McRae and Alex Warren?..without 90% of the people saying “Who”
The Del Mar Fair had a decent lineup of classic rock groups in the late 90s/early 2000s. At the time the standing-room area in front of the stage was included with fair admission and you could get right up in front without too much trouble. I saw Joe Walsh, Joan Jett, Grand Funk and Peter Frampton, all pretty great shows.
Micky Dolenz played on the 4th of July in 2019 which was a lot of fun. He had a cracking backup band and some great stories to go along with the Monkees tunes.