JamesRiverBlograss

Friday and Saturday August 25 and 26, 2006 Greg Hanson and the Backroads were slated to play at the Ransom County Fair in Lisbon, North Dakota. So, we loaded up the truck (Saturn Ion) and were on our way. Three hours later, we popped over the hill overlooking town and the fairgrounds were already buzzing. We pulled up to a trailer next to the liquor stand, hoping that wasn’t the stage, but it was. Sad part was we had to set up and tear down for both nights.

Anyway, we got a call from Joel, the guitar player, informing us that his Suzuki had run out of gas…he had to push for two miles or so before getting help. I told him, “Yeah, you’d think there’d be a gas station every five miles out here in rural North Dakota.:-)

So things were very slow on Friday, until about ten carnies arrived. A fellow approached me and said, “You guys are good. What kind of music do you play?” I replied, “Mostly country.” He said, “Cool. Do you know any ‘Insane Clown Posse?” :-0 I nearly fell off of the stage.

Well, other than that, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. I did get to enjoy Saturday’s game between the Cubs and Cards on Fox, made even better by the game winning hit by Bennett, then getting home in time to catch the walkoff grand slam.

Thanks to the town of Lisbon for a great time at the fair!

Well, we knew Saturday, August ninth would be a big day in the history of Greg Hanson and the backroads, but we had no idea. We knew we were opening for country music star Blake Shelton, but living about 2 1/2 hours south of Milbank, we were unaware of the weather conditions.

We planned to leave at 2:00 p.m., and got a call from Greg just before we left saying that bad weather was setting in, and the show was going to be moved up so that they could get it in. Well, we took off as planned…I don’t remember what time we arrived, but it was about 5:00. I took my equipment and proceeded to set up, and did a five second sound check. I was right in front of the drum set, which was completely covered in plastic. Now I got about an hour break before the show.

By this time I was hungry, and hit up a local boy scout troop that was selling bratwursts. Mmm…bratwurst. Now, I headed back to the stage.

Now, it was cloudy all day, but not a sprinkle fell, so I figured we’d be just fine. About fifteen minues we hopped on stage…I better go back a bit. Because of the tight time frame, we were told that we didn’t have time to set up drums, and we couldn’t use Blake’s. Huh? OK, I guess. Oh, and we only had one microphone so that we could not do any harmonies. Huh? OK, I guess. So we went on, played a couple of Greg’s originals and finished with ‘If You’re Gonna Play In Texas’. It went ok, conseriding.

Now just before we went on stage, a guy with a walkie talkie got the message, ‘It’s about twenty minutes before we get the (expletive) pounded out of us’. And he was right. As we walked off the stage, the skies opened up, and it poured. I got my stuff to the trailer before it got wet, thankfully. I stood in the trailer with an ice cold beer, and heard the wind come up, several screams, and a loud crash. Well, a light bank had fallen and crashed right through the front windsheild of Blake’s bus. Luckily, no one was hurt. Even after all of this, Blake came out and took pictures with anyone that wanted one. Pretty cool.

Well, our street dance was moved to the fire hall. That’s cool. Rumours were flying that Blake might stop by, but we didn’t know for sure. Well, the crowd was electric. We played for an hour or so, and the band bus and Blake’s bus (windsheild covered in clear plastic), stopped outside. After another half hour or so, they were ready to take the stage. I gave my Hoehner fiddle to the fiddle player…found out he is a 23 year old Nashville native, and was with Blake when we saw them at WeFest awhile back. We had a nice talk.

Blake then took the stage and played for at least an hour. Great stuff. We stood beside the stage…it’s pretty cool to watch those bands up close. One funny thing…the keyboard player was trying to set up his piano on a folding chair, and it nearly fell. I told the fiddle player that I didn’t think it would hold the keyboard…he said, ‘I know, and he’s drunk as hell’.

Anyway, we finished up the night with another hour or so of music. This will go down as one of my most memorable nights in the ‘Greg Hanson Experience’.