Country Thunder

What. A. Weekend!

We can now call ourselves Country Thunder veterans.  We’ve talked about going for years, even buying a campsite before then selling it, but this was the first year that we were actually able to go.

In years past, the boys sports schedules and Mark’s travel interfered and we ended up selling our campsite.  Even this year there was a time when we weren’t sure we could make it work.

I am so glad we did.

Country Thunder is a four-night concert festival in a giant field southeast of Phoenix in the little town of Florence.  There are several smaller fields that serve as campsites and also large parking lots for single day use.  Since it was our first time, we arrived Wednesday afternoon so we’d have plenty of room to maneuver our Phaeton into our spaces.  An odd thing about the campsites is their size, 19 x 39 feet.  When Mark called to make the reservation, he was told that due to the size of our RV we would need two spaces.  Um, okay but the math still doesn’t work.  We are 40 feet long and even with two spaces, it’s still not long enough.  No matter she said, we still had to buy two.  Alrighty then, we’ll buy two.  Turns out, we were just fine backing in since we could put the back of the rig over the berms at the back of our spaces.  We were camping in the Encore campground which had a designated quiet time from 2-6 am; not all do.

There was a steady stream of trucks, trailers and motor homes all afternoon and evening but it was nothing compared to Thursday morning.  The campers never seemed to stop coming.  Two girls set up next to us on one side and a small group on the other side.  It was the girls’ third time camping in that spot and they told us a little about others that would be camping close by.  One thing I noticed right away was how nice everyone was, just like most places we camp.

While out walking around we talked to different people.  All had been multiple times, some ten years running.  Many of the campsites were quite elaborate with corn-hole tournament spaces, wooden dance floors and more.  One we saw even had a giant teeter-totter.  Sure made our site pale in comparison.  We had chairs and one corn-hole game; slackers. Most told us not to worry about taking chairs into the concert area.  Some said they were a pain and others said their chairs had been stolen.  Hmm, we knew we’d be standing during the shows but having a chair to sit in after lots of standing sure would be nice.  We didn’t take them Thursday but did the rest of the time and it ended up being fine.

A sad sign of the times at any large event is the security rules.  Country Thunder management sent out an email detailing what would and would not be allowed inside the concert area and the list was what you would expect.  No large bags, coolers, outside food, etc.  One sealed water bottle per person was okay, though.  I have a small approved sized purse that I use for baseball and football games which holds my phone, lip gloss and a small travel wallet but where was I going to put sunscreen, a hat and a large water bottle?  I found a clear, drawstring backpack on Amazon that would work perfectly for only $9. Problem solved.

 

 

 

 

There was plenty going on during the day before the concerts started.  A group of young people were camped across from us that were well equipped for fun.  They played a makeshift game of kickball in the campground street of sorts with different rules.  They couldn’t kick the ball, they had to hit it was a golf club.  That kept the ball from really flying around and hitting other campers.  And, they had to have a drink in one hand, both batting and in the field.  Imagine fielding a kickball with one hand AND accurately throwing it to the base.  How about being the first baseman trying to catch the ball with drink in hand.  The front of our RV provided a nice backstop for the first basemen.  If you’re team is batting, you must finish your drink before you touch home plate.  It as super fun to watch.

 

 

Saturday afternoon another group down our row had these giant human sized ball things that you stand inside.  I looked them up and they are called Socker Boppers Body Bubble Ball.  They played a kind of jousting game with them.  Two people, each with one of these bubble balls on would run at and bang into each other with the one left standing declared the winner.  It was wild watching the bodies fly.  Thankfully nobody got hurt.

 

 

 

 

I got a lesson in the game called Flip Cup.  They tried to get me to play but I told them I was happy to watch.  We played Quarters in college and now it’s Flip Cup.  Basically, you team up and stand on either side of a long table.  The first two people opposite each other down their drinks then flip their cup up from the edge until it stands upright on its own.  Then the next person in line downs their drink and flips their cup and so on until you reach the end of the table.  Their goal was an endless game of Flip Cup with people from lots of campsites running their tables out ready to play.  It was great fun watching them.

Oh to be young again, the fun and stupid things we could do.

 

The people watching was an event all on its own.  We saw one man every night with the prettiest Great Dane.  I had to get his picture.

 

 

 

 

Picture this:  you’re walking around a concert venue with a couple hundred thousand people and you run into someone you know.  This happened every single day.  On Thursday, a boy who played high school football with our son Kevin walked up to him and shouted KEV!  He now works for the radio station that was a main Country Thunder sponsor.  After chatting with him for a few minutes and catching up, he handed us four backstage passes for two acts that afternoon.  Bryan White was the first of the two and we headed over to the designated spot shortly before he came on.  We were all pretty excited as none of us had ever been backstage before.  We talked about finding Levi afterward and getting backstage seats for Big & Rich or Toby Keith.  While it was a lot of fun, the sound quality was definitely lackluster.  We decided we’d rather see and listen from the front of the stage instead of the back.

I hadn’t been to a music festival since college and we didn’t stay on site way back then.  Music festivals are stiff a super fun way to do a concert, or 16 concerts in a weekend.  Thursday’s headliner was Cole Swindell; I just love his song “You Should Be Here.”  I cry every time.  It’s written as a tribute to his dad but it came out about the time I was fighting my own cancer and helped me push forward so that my kids didn’t play that song for me anytime soon.  I like a lot of his other songs, too and was excited to see him.  He did not disappoint.  His opening act was Lauren Alaina from American Idol and boy did she put on a good show.  I’d pay to see her again.

 

Friday’s headliner was Jason Aldean.  While I’m not a huge fan, I thoroughly enjoyed his show.  The 5 o’clock act on Friday was Neil McCoy.  You may remember the name from 90’s country as he had several hits.  If you ever get a chance to see him, run to the ticket booth as fast as you can.  He was a complete joy to watch.  The dude is hysterically funny.  We could have watched him for several more hours.

Saturday night was a big night for me.  I love me some Big & Rich and Toby Keith.  We’ve seen Toby perform before but not Big & Rich.  They have some really fun songs, one of my favorites is “Six Foot Town” that references being super tall like my husband and kids.  Sadly they didn’t play it but it was a fun show nonetheless.  Toby Keith was as entertaining as ever, although pretty drunk.  At least we think he was hammered.  If not, he needs to work on remembering the words to some songs.

Sunday night closed out with Luke Bryan.  Brett Young was his opening act.  He’s an artist on the brink, on the brink of being really huge.  I bought his CD when we got home.  He told the cutest story about his parents who have been married 39 years about how his dad doesn’t struggles to sleep when his mom isn’t there.  So, he wrote a song about it and it was a big hit, “Sleep Without You.”  Luke Bryan was a great way to close out the weekend.  His non-stop energy kept us dancing around the entire time and we were bummed when he was done.  We wanted an encore to the encore.

 

I completely fumbled food planning.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  In my head we’d see some of the early bands then come back for a nice dinner with tablecloths and nice wine.  Okay, no the tablecloths.  Then we’d head back in for the main acts.  Epic fail.  This is a burger and dog event.  Or at least something just as easy to put together.  I planned honey spicy chicken which we thankfully were able to cook quickly.  I planned burgers for one night and we had enough buns for two.  We had tri-tip but without the sweet potato side dish because it would take too long.  We never even made the spaghetti I brought.  Next time it’s burgers and dogs all weekend.

Mark has a 6 am conference call every Monday.  We initially planned on staying Sunday night and driving home after his call.  Once we got there, we realized the cell signal would not support an hours long call with 300,000 of our closest friends all drawing on the same signal.  And, silly guy had a noon plane to catch for a work trip to Montreal.  Not to mention we had to get the RV back to storage before his flight.  I’m totally fine driving the beast but I do need more practice backing into a covered storage space.  There are lots of obstacles at storage!

So we hustled out of the concert area as soon as we realized there wasn’t going to be an encore to the encore.  Our brisk walk was more like a jog to my short legs.  There was already a modest line of people trying to get out.  We felt okay about out timing to get out and hey, we got to see and hear all of the show.  That was false confidence, let me tell you.  It took us a solid two hours to get out.  Two hours to travel a distance that we walked in 10 minutes earlier that day.  It was a total mess.  An unmitigated disaster.  We found out later that Country Thunder management completely changed exit procedure from every previous event.  Somebody thought that funneling campers from 13 campgrounds out of a single one-lane exit was a good idea.  The good news in that mess was that I was able to clean the inside except for vacuum and mop.  Thankfully, once we got to the highway, it was a quick 40 minute drive home.  We crashed into bed at 2:30.  Mark got up for his call while I began to unload the RV.  We had to leave no later than 9:45 in order to drop the RV off on the way to the airport.  We heard from friends that stayed until Monday that it was just as bad if you left after 8 am.

Time for some serious laundry as it was dirty camping.  But dusty cowboy boots mean you had a great time.  All in all it was a fun weekend and we will do it again.  Until next time, Country Thunder…