Saturday, August 22nd
Turnpike Troubadours at the Granada in Lawrence
Not a country music fan? Me neither. Don’t let that stop you from checking out one of the best live bands I’ve seen over the past couple years.
I suppose we’re lucky here in northeast Kansas to be so close to Oklahoma, the home base of the Troubadour boys. That proximity has afforded us several shows in recent memory – at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, at the Crossroads, and at the Granada – while those in more distant locales have had to scrap just to get a ticket to see these young red dirt boys blow up.
This show comes on the tail end of a long tour spent promoting their upcoming self-titled album, which drops on September 18th, so I expect the band to be right in the pocket, road-hardened and tight. And the crowd at the Granada should be pretty good, most likely sold out, especially considering the students are just back in town. As of writing this post there are still some tickets left here, but if you’re planning to wait until the day of, you may end up on the outside looking in.
Bonus tip: If you spot Hearne at the show, he’ll buy you your first shot of whiskey. He’ll be the one in the chaps with spurs.
Will he be wearing underdrawers under those chaps or going commando?
Breaking Kick Ass Tipster Deets: Tonys Kansas City to close at the end of the week.
Word has it the Southern Poverty Legal Center gave him a ultimatum. Close or face their wrath in court.
I went to this show as I did last time they came to Granada. It was fairly disappointing, which was a shame as I took two girls who had never been to one of their shows. The last time they played there was probably about 400 people, this time it was packed and sold out……….
And the band showed up hammered. Not in a oh, hey, this is a fun time party band and they are partying with everyone. Nope. Especially the singer. He was smashed before they even went on. Announced it after the first song and basically proceeded to fumble his way through the entire set, breaking strings, forgetting lyrics, forgetting chords, etc, etc. After dropping over a 100 bucks on tickets and probably another 60 on drinks it would have been nice to see a good show. Too bad, I was really looking forward to these guys as they were so good last time. No excuses either, this was the last of the road shows for this tour before the band went home. Kinda a shit show. Disappointing. I was in touring bands, and I get it. Long tour, you want to go home, but when you sell twice as many tickets as you did last time you were here and the show is a sellout, don’t get fucking hammered before 8pm.
Got to hand it to the crowd too (or bad planning on the bar/promoter’s part). Fucking bar ran out of every beer but Budlight before the band even started playing. One girl next to me passed out on her feet and took a nose dive. One dude was laying passed out on his back in a pile of piss in a stall in the men’s room (it was literally an inch deep on the entire floor mixed in with a gallon of vomit), I had to yell at his buddy to take care of his boy. He had no idea they were both so wasted. I like drinking and getting drunk just as much as anyone, but seriously folks. Get your shit together. And there ain’t that much country music in Lawrence, you know these folks are driving back to where ever they came from drunk as shit at 1 am.