Tour Memories (and occasional musings)

A Preamble This is a blog post I’ve been wanting to write for a while, but which I have resisted until now. I already have a reputation for being outspoken and I know that some fans consider that a Crime Against Hanson. In some circles, simply being critical of the band will brand you as a ‘negative’ person. But being a fan of a band is not a paid gig, and I have no editor to answer to, or corporation to please. I’m only a fan, without any sort of special status in exchange of which I could reasonably be expected to toe the 3CG party line. My 7-Year Musical Ride So Far 6 years, soon to be 7 I joined the fanclub in April 2012, completely unaware that 2012 was going to pan out as a very difficult year for the band, with the notorious ‘near-split’ happening, with an album that was proving difficult to finish and a whole load of tumbleweed standing in for content on the website. Not knowing, however, any better, I threw myself into the fan experience with the recklessness and ...

Somebody That Wants To Love You Who are you? When I first heard this song in “The Making of In Color” stream, I knew it reminded me of something. A famous song from the 1980s...another soft-rock anthem. Finally, it came to me: it was Berlin’s "Take My Breath Away ", only slowed down. Try and sing the verse from one song to the other’s melody and it almost fits perfectly. (Don't call your copyright lawyer though: by the time the chorus starts, STWTLY is a totally different song.) This 80s pop/rock vibe has become Hanson’s predominant style in the last 3 EPs - Loud, Play and In Color: it’s upbeat, it makes for catchy songs and the fans’ reception has been consistently positive. STWTL could almost be a companion to "Stop Me in My Tracks" from last year’s Loud EP, with its powerful guitar riffs and sing-along-able chorus, not to mention the universally pleasing Taylor vocals. Let’s delve into the lyrics now: Long before the spotlight You were part of my...

CH-CH-CHANGES The programme landed in our inboxes in mid-December to a mixed reaction. The schedule was substantially different from previous years: the shows (with the exception of the welcoming show) would start a lot earlier, and two out of three ‘activities with the band’ would take place afterwards. The activities would be Cards Against Humanity and Family Feud - i.e. different kind of party games to what some fans had been hoping for: sack races, egg and spoon races and other such games of the type I’d endured at church group trips in my childhood*. As we already knew, there would only be one ‘craft’ type of activity, tie dye, with a notable change: all three Hanson would take part at the same time. [*I believe these games, when forced upon an adult in the captive-like conditions of a youth camp or, equally, of all-inclusive vacation, openly contravene the Geneva Conventio n: Convention I: the Convention prohibits [...] assaults upon personal dignity.] The news about the ga...

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...