June 22, 2007

Red River Valley Fair

West Fargo, ND

Concert Review

After waiting 3 years since Al's Poodle Hat Tour, they day had finally come for my next concert. I went to pick up Dan, who I had met online a couple years before, in Hinkley the day before the show. The next morning, we took the 5 hour drive out to West Fargo, and arrived there at about 3:30. We got checked in to our hotel room, then went to the fair, which was only 2 miles down the road from the hotel, and scoped out the place. We got there plenty early, since we wanted to try and catch the sound check. As we were walking around the fair, we could hear loud, random drum beats coming from the grandstand area, and we decided to walk over and check it out. We looked inside the grandstand, and saw Jeremy from the forum (Alinite27) standing out in the grandstand, so we made our way inside.

We made it to the grandstand just in time. As we were walking in, Dan and me could hear Al and the band start playing Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis. After that, Al said they should try One More Minute to test out the background vocals. After the song was done, someone said "That's why we don't do that one anymore...", whatever that meant. It sounded great to me. Jim then went into some random guitar solos, and Jon joined in on the drums. I didn't recognize the song they were playing, but it sounded cool. We could see Al wearing his accordion around this time, and the band started playing Polkarama!, and Al mentioned that he wasn't hearing the accordion. A few lines into the song, and they quit playing. They tried it a second time a couple minutes later, sounding much better, then Al left the stage.

After the sound check, I walked over to Jeremy and introduced myself, and we had a rather lengthy conversation on our way out. He told us that he followed the bus into the racetrack where the concert was, and met Al and the band. We shook hands, and posed for a quick picture, then Dan and me went back to the hotel to grab the tickets and get our cameras ready for the show.

We got back to the fair about 10 minutes before the gates opened, and found Jeremy waiting there. There were barely any people waiting to get in. Right before the gates opened, an announcement was made that the show was going to be delayed until 9:00, because Al wanted to wait because the sun was shining right on the video screens. We made our way in, and we wound right up in the front row, with an unusually large fence between us and the stage. I started snapping pictures of the stage, and Steve Jay and Bermuda getting ready for the show, and security didn't even care. Jeremy, Dan, and me stood there waiting for the show to begin talking the whole time. He shared with me some stories he had from his tour chasing this year. It was really cool talking with him.

Then some house announcements were made, and they said photography would not be tolerated. And they really enforced this during the concert, which was stupid, because I really wanted to try out my new camera I had just got. Funzone started blasting right at 9:00. I'm glad it wasn't delayed any longer. During Funzone, the black curtain right below the video screens was down a couple inches, and I could see Al peek up and look through the opening right before he came out. When he came out for Polkarama, the crowd went nuts! I swear, half the time I couldn't even hear the music they were so loud, singing to every line. They were like this all night, and Al had so much energy...way more energy than I've ever seen him have at any other show I've been to. It was a great performance. The only problem I remember was Al flubbing the "medieval on your heinie" line in Amish Paradise, changing it to "behbbellge heinie heinie heinie!"

At the beginning of the encore, Al made the comment that we were "one of the best crowds he's ever sang to through a chain-linked fence." The performance of Cell Phones and Albuquerque were insane! I'm loving the new encore, its a nice change. During Albuquerque, I tried taking a picture, and immediately got yelled at by security to put my camera away...goons. At least I got a couple from I'll Sue Ya.

After the show, Jeremy, Dan, and I walked down this road that Jeremy took earlier when he followed the bus in before the show. There was a security guy waiting there, and he said he didn't if we waited outside the VIP section for the bus to pull out. So we sat down on the side of the road, and the yellow-dressed security goon went into his vehicle and called another security goon to walk out there and kick us out. When he came out, he asked us how we got there, and told us to leave. We explained to him that the security person that was already out here told us we could wait here, and he snapped at us and said "yeah, well I make the rules around here." So we kindly, but angrily, left.

Overall, this concert experience was horrible due to the venue and their security. But the great performance by Al and the band made it more than worth my time! And the sound check was really cool to see. I'm going to try catching more sound checks this summer.

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Jared Marker / the27weirdal@yahoo.com