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Day 1 - The Welcome Show


















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





















Hanson have a huge catalogue of songs to draw from; more than most artists I can think of. So what better opportunity than BTTI - a fan club only event - to pull out those deep cuts from the vault and play them live to their fans? The last 2 EPs barely got a look in through the whole event. What happened to ‘On The Road’? How about the songs from the ICON book?
Are Hanson trying to play safe to the crowd (but why? we’re all fan club members) or - worse - is it because the old and trusted classics need little or no rehearsing? [opinions are welcome in the comments section]

Overall, it was a good show, of course (can these guys ever put on a bad show?). But somehow it failed to grab me the way all the other shows I’d been to before had done. It was good but not spectacular. Still, we had two more shows ahead plus the solo sets, so I wasn’t worried: every little thing gonna be alright.

*I’m going to embrace the Jamaican way of worrying less for 2016. These people really do have a good handle on life.

Comments

  1. I'm on of those who has many concerts under my belt, and yes, I've heard the staples more times than I can count. I, too, would LOVE to hear the deep cuts from the vault. This is their best opportunity to play those songs and be pretty much guaranteed that the crowd will still sing along.

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  2. I'm on of those who has many concerts under my belt, and yes, I've heard the staples more times than I can count. I, too, would LOVE to hear the deep cuts from the vault. This is their best opportunity to play those songs and be pretty much guaranteed that the crowd will still sing along.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Totally agree with you, and I'm a returning fan who hasn't been to too many shows either... Maybe I set the bar too high ;)

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