Tour Memories (and occasional musings)

If, like me, you've ever tried to explain to an ‘outsider’ how our fandom friendships work, you'll know that few people truly understand. Well, practically nobody. How do you explain that your friends are real friends even if they live in a different continent and you only see them once a year (if you’re lucky)? The overwhelming perception from colleagues and ‘civilians’ is that if you can’t physically hang out on a regular basis, those people cannot possibly be real friends. Every fan knows that this is simply wrong. And I mean all fans - w hether it’s our band or not, whether it’s a cult TV show or a fantasy book series, we all inhabit similar worlds, with similar rules and similar conventions. The other Frequently Asked Question is ‘do you and your friends just talk about [insert fandom here] all day?’ How do you reply to that, other than in the standard, sarcastic way - “sure, what else would we have to talk about?” . The truth is that, once someon

Without a doubt, Jamaica 2016 wins hands down over Mexico 2015: everything has been better - the location, the resort, the staff, the way things ran seamlessly - with the exception of the weather on day 2. Numbers were lower and it showed, in a good way: you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars to be packed like sardines. What perhaps made it less special to me was the fact that I’d done it before, and I already knew what to expect. I guess it’s inevitable and not Hanson’s fault, or Island Gigs’. My friends and I always joke that Hanson is a cult, and as devoted cult sisters, we feel compelled to give most of our income to the band. We’re joking, but only just: you can see how tempting it becomes to stretch your finances to the limit, year after year, so that you can be with your friends on a tropical island, watching Zac Hanson show you how to make bracelets that you’ll never wear, bingeing on music for four unforgettable days. That’s why most BTTI attendees are alumni -

The solo sets are unique to BTTI - as yet, Hanson have never performed solo anywhere else. Watching guys perform by themselves is a different experience, and a song is usually played with a full band will sound completely different accompanied only by the keyboard or an acoustic guitar. Zac If at BTTI 2015 Zac’s solo set had been somewhat subdued, this year was the exact opposite. Zac was on top form, making everybody laugh and just - well, being Zac. The tone was set with the opening song, ‘Give Me Your Best Shot’ - of which Zac had forgotten the lyrics. No problem though, because our resourceful drummer got his phone out and googled it (other bands: don’t try this at home. Only Zac Hanson gets away with that). After a repeat of ‘Juliet’ (a song he really must love because he repeated at his solo last year too), I heard the opening notes of one of my absolute favourite Hanson songs: “I Am” - one of those songs which really should have made it into an album. It was s

I have to admit that, following Isaac’s solo set (more on that later)  I was a bit worried about the final show: would it be a disappointment? We took our places on Isaac’s side of the stage this time and hoped for the best. Now, I don’t know what happened between the end of Isaac’s solo set and the main show, but somehow the lack of focus he had displayed a couple of hours earlier had disappeared, and as the show kicked off to the opening notes of ‘Tragic Symphony’, it was clear that we had ‘our’ Isaac back and he was on fire . Sigh of relief! The setlist was a mix of album tracks, predominantly from ‘Anthem’ and ‘Shout it Out’ and a few from the rest - plus a couple of songs from the ‘Sound of Light’ EP which I get the impression the band treat as an extension of ‘Anthem’ by now (it’s their best members’ EP of all times so far. I’m not accepting different opinions here!).  Surprisingly, “Cut Right Through Me” made an appearance (I’d only heard that one live once) although I’m

If there is one thing you can't accuse Hanson of, is of not listening to their fans. A lot of international fans on the forums had expressed an interest in experiencing the covers night of the R&R tour so I had a feeling that they’d give us a covers show at this BTTI.  I was proven right - as they announced on the first day in Jamaica (the original plan, as highlighted in the newsletter, had been an acoustic show). I was intrigued and approached the show with an open mind; besides, I remembered from the setlists of the R&R tour that the covers night had also featured a few Hanson songs. As it turned out, the setlist was made up entirely of covers: from Blues Brothers classic ‘Gimme Some Lovin’ to an epic rendition of B.B. King’s ‘Stand by Me’, to a dance-along ‘Dancing in the Street’, which Taylor changed, rather aptly, to ‘Dancing on The Beach’. I didn’t know all the songs, and wasn’t a fan of all the ones I did recognise (ahem, Michael Jackson) but I still enjoyed the

Day 3 - Prelude to a Musical Overload Day 3 was supposed to be our ‘rest’ day: we’d take it easy, chill by the pool and not worry about getting a good spot for the guest shows, which we were planning to watch from the comfort of a sunlounger, cocktail in hand, looking at the ocean. Not so. Because of the change in schedule, the guest shows had been put forward to 8 PM, and we knew that once people conquered their spots, they would not give them up for Hanson. So we took our places on the sand. Concerts on the beach: aren’t they a splendid idea? A soft surface for bare feet, the sand under your toes...a liberating experience where you can unleash your inner beach goddess. Right? Wrong. By the time Hanson had started, the sand had been compacted down to the consistency of concrete: it was brutal. My knees hurt, my back hurt, everything hurt but there was no way I was giving up my third row spot. *Slight digression - I’m told by friends who have children that after giving birth,

The one for which my friends and I had managed to get really good spots on front and second row! It had started to rain but we’d all huddled together in the rain and were kind of enjoying ourselves, making most of a less-than-ideal situation. We were okay, really: I handed out rain ponchos and the Jamaican stage hand had covered us with a tarpaulin. “You’re not used to this weather!” he kept saying, while I thought to myself, ‘mate, you have no idea of the horizontal rain we get where I live by the English Channel! ’. (I call our regular winter weather by my neck of the woods ‘the apocalypse’). The rain had actually stopped when Zac appeared right behind me. He’d come to tell us that unfortunately the show would have to be postponed because of lighting: it was too dangerous. Although it was a massive disappointment to hear that, I really appreciated that Zac had come to tell us in person: Hanson could have asked Rebecca to do it, or the stage manager, but instead, we got the

As an international fan, and a relatively new one, I haven’t seen that many Hanson concerts yet - only 6 regular tour dates in Europe and last year’s BTTI. So maybe my expectations are different to those of an American fan who has been to 100 + shows. The more you see, the bigger the chances of a not-so-good one. It’s called the law of diminishing returns for a reason. That’s kind of what happened for me at Show #1 - the Welcome Show. Maybe it was the setlist, which contained a lot of classics like ‘Where’s the Love’, ‘Lost Without Each Other’ and ‘Waiting for This’. They’re undoubtedly really good songs but there are so many others that Hanson could have picked, and I couldn’t help thinking that it was a safe choice for a party crowd. Yes, we did get a few pearls like ‘Dance Like You Don’t Care’, ‘White Collar Crime’ and the hardly-ever-played ‘Tonight’, but overall, most of the setlist was quite predictable. Setlist photo courtesy of Iria Rodriguez

We landed in Jamaica on a hot, humid Sunday evening. As the plane descended upon the island, I thought to myself: “of all the places in the world…!”. I’m ready to admit that Jamaica had never been on my bucket list, but now, thanks to Hanson, I was about to spend a week in Bob Marley’s country. I’d never been a huge fan of reggae, although of course I have an original cassette of ‘Legend’ kicking around somewhere. But really: I don’t smoke weed (hate the smell) and I like cold climates. I burn in the sun. The things I do for this band… 2016 was my second ‘round’ of Hanson Holiday Camp. My first one was in 2015, when it was held in Cancun, Mexico. It was the one with the bad weather, the wind, the ‘sand in my crevice’, the unforgettable boat trip during which people threw up overboard (not me) and the stunning desert island show. I'd known then, from Day 1, that I’d want to repeat the experience in 2016.  I’m back from Jamaica now, and while most of my friends are alre