Rapids Jam: Day 2, Part One. Don't Tell People to Beat Their Children from the Stage

Day Two, Friday, was for the most part outstanding, but I'll write about all the good acts in my next post. I don't want to sully positive reviews with bad ones. A couple of performers midday got me so annoyed that just have to get it off my chest.
A guy named Drew Davis was the second act of the day.  He bounded onto the stage full of energy, an attractive guy in that bad boy kind of way. He moved like a rock star. He had a decent country/rock sound. We were mostly enjoying his performance. At the very least, he was entertaining. Then, out of the blue, he says "I'm Drew Davis and I'm running for president. I believe in God in school and beating your children. If you're not willing to beat them, I'll do it for you."

Tracy and I got up and left. We were not going to sit there and listen to that garbage. I know a lot of people use this phrase "God in school", whatever that means. I was taught that God is everywhere. But to be irresponsible enough to say from the stage that people should beat their children? Shame! Shame on you Drew Davis. That's completely unacceptable.

I am a very patriotic person and I enjoy a good patriotic song, but I was tuning Drew Davis out as he started to sing something about red, white, and blue. Then a stage hand began to wave a huge American flag and Davis, in the middle of the song, began a verse from the Star Spangled Banner. Everybody on the lawn stood up.  That's what you do when there's a flag up and the national anthem is being sung, but by the time everyone got up, he had moved into another verse of his song and everyone sat back down in their lawn chairs. I think it was disrespectful not only of the flag and the anthem to be used like that, but of the audience. Quite frankly, he was obnoxious. Drew Davis, you're no Toby Keith.

A couple of acts later John Berry came on and did a short acoustic show. I didn't catch anything but the last song "Give Me Back My America". I  have included a video so you can judge for yourself, but it was all I could do to restrain myself from actually booing. It's a song all about how an unnamed group in government is plotting and scheming to change everything America was founded on. It has lines like.

I want to raise my family on my piece of land

Start my own business, do the best that I can

Without interference from government plans

and

I want to worship my God like my father did

Give to His church what I know is His

Without interference from Capital Hill

Give me back my America.

John  Berry, who is preventing you from raising your kids on your piece of land, starting a business, or worshiping and tithing? I am raising my kid on my piece of land without any problems. I started my own business, two actually, and I worship exactly where and how I please. Stop whining. In a little bit you'll get to vote again and maybe your guy or gal will win. That's America.

When he thanks the audience in the end he says something like "America is the greatest country on earth". The guy sitting next to me says "Well that's funny. Just a minute ago he couldn't find America." 

Somebody posted the following article on twitter today. With scenes like I just described, I'm inclined to agree with some of what he says. The article opens like this: "It’s time to abolish country music. Just ban it outright. It has become a toxin in American culture, retarding the cerebellum of the body politic"
http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/22/the-decline-of-country-music/

Rapids Jam: Country Throwdown



Willie Nelson, Lukas Nelson, Jamey Johnson and others
closing the Country Throwdown with "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"

Day one of Rapids Jam was Willie Nelson and the Country Throwdown tour.  I think this may have been the best day, although it may have felt like the best day only because it was the shortest and most cohesive day.

Lee Brice opened the evening on the main stage, and sadly, if there was a weak act, it was him. I was looking forward to seeing him because I love like crazy his "Love Like Crazy". It sounded like he was trying too hard to entertain us. He wasn't smooth. What he did have was two of the best looking guitarists on the face of the earth. During the Willie Nelson concert they were standing in front of me and two pretty blonds were working hard to win their favors. One may have succeeded, but I lost interest and didn't actually see her close. As amusing as it may be to watch beautiful people in a mating dance, Willie Nelson is still a better show.




Lee Brice and his handsome guitarists. Not sure you get the scope of their, shall we say, symmetry, from this photo.

Craig Campbell, the guy who sings "Family Man" was on a side stage early on. He was very enjoyable. He sang his new funny song, Fish. It uses fishing as a metaphor for sex (or I just have a dirty mind and he's really talking about fishing). My friend Deirdre's comment, with a chuckle, was "I can't believe someone hasn't recorded that song already." You can hear it in the video below.

Randy Houser was next. I didn't know what to expect from him but he hit it out of the park. I even got carried away and stood up to dance during Whistling Dixie, even though I am just whistling Dixie. My family wasn't even in the U.S. during the Civil War. He just sounded that good!

I ran over to the side stage to see Brantley Gilbert after that. Gilbert should have been on the main stage. He gives a fantastic performance and has many familiar songs, even if he isn't the recording artist who made them into hits. I dare say that he sings the songs he's written better than Jason Aldean, especially Dirt Road Anthem. Dirt Road Anthem sounded wonderful coming from his mouth, and from Aldean, frankly, it's a bit forced. There was a big crowd of teenagers and twenty somethings at the side stage for Gilbert, and they were dancing and hollering. It was a blast.

Jamey Johnson is brilliant and Willie Nelson is beautiful.

Lukas Nelson, Willie Nelson's son, had a very strong presence the entire day. He's an impressive guitarist and has a voice very similar to his Dad's. I think he made a cameo appearance with every performer. Security put some miles on a golf cart on Thursday shuttling Lukas Nelson back and forth between the main and side stage. It was moving seeing him perform with his father. Deirdre is a big Willie Nelson fan and that was her favorite part of the evening.

They closed the show with Jamey Johnson and Lukas Nelson joining Willie in "Will the Circle Be Unbroken". Fantastic!





Rapids Jam, Year One. Benefits of the Platinum Ticket

Early this year the word began to spread that Willie Nelson and the Country Throwdown was coming to Rapids Jam, a brand new country music festival in Roanoke Rapids, NC. A girlfriend sent me a message, "Do you want to go?" I answered "Is water wet?" We decided to splurge for second row reserved seats in the platinum section. It was more money than either of us had ever spent on a concert ticket, but it was worth the additional cost for the following reasons.

The View
We are both now completely spoiled. After the last few days neither of us want to watch a concert from a jumbotron ever again. The party pit separating us from the main stage was only about twenty feet deep and two sides of our section were catwalk. The people in our section who liked to go up and touch hands with a performer could do so easily as they walked by. Even though there weren't any big troublemakers in our section, the police were very busy getting people back into their seats from the edge of the catwalk. At first this police presence got on my nerves, as I felt like people just wanted to be close and have fun, but it became clear that if they didn't do this, the perimeter of our area would become full and those people who wanted to sit and watch from their very expensive seats would not be able to see, and make no mistake, people were being very clear. "We payed a lot for these seats so sit down!"

The Company We Kept
Our little section ranged in age from eighteen months to eighty. We were a motley crew: a gay man, a chatty lady who came by herself in her forty foot motor home, sisters in their 60s who acted just as silly about getting pictures and touching hands with performers as the twenty something blond with the very patient fiance, the local guy who sat quietly with his wife and friend except when yelling at someone to move out of his view (He was funny. He never reacted to any of the music except to take his fan on a Popsicle stick and flap it at the performer when he approved.) two other local guys who drank a whole lot of beer and threw peanuts at the guy with the fan, (one of them showed up on Saturday looking much more sober with a daughter, a date, and an ex-wife) the pregnant couples with doting husbands, the soldier with his overprotective sister, a couple of lesbians, and of course, us, two Jewish ladies. What we did not have a whole lot of were drunks in their twenties making a scene. They were all on the lawn.

Sitting in the sun listening to music with the same group of strangers for three days is a bonding experience and I left with at least one additional friend.

Ticket Splitting
Unfortunately the friend who I had originally bought tickets with was unable to attend Thursday, the first day of the festival, so I brought another friend that day who wanted to see Willie Nelson. A big  benefit of buying a reserved seat versus a general admissions ticket is having the ability to split it the ticket.

Bathrooms
The venue itself is a huge flat field. There was no running water, only portapotties and hand washing stations, but the portapotties we used were only for the people with reserved seating or with a party pit pass. They were as clean as you could possibly expect a portapottie at a music festival to be and were cleaned between each day.

Private Beer Vending
We had our own beer booth. It never had a line, but usually the only line in the entire venue was for the snow cones. Apart from the first day when it was overcast, it was too hot to drink more than a beer or two, at least for those of us who didn't want to be hauled off on an EMS stretcher.