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 September 25, 2010 - Re Bath |
 Worlds Largest Demolition Derby - September 25th at 1:00 PM |
SUNSET ICE CREAM DEMOLITION
DERBY QUALIFYING EVENTS
Showtime: 1:00 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
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| September 25, 2010 |
 Full Pull Productions Sanctioned Tractor and Truck Pulling |
FULL PULL PRODUCTIONS TRACTOR AND TRUCK PULLING
Showtime: 7:00 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
- Grandstand: $18.00
- Bleacher: $13.00
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| September 26, 2010 - Janet Weis Childrens Hospital |
 Freestyle Motocross - Sunday September 26, 2010 at 7:00 PM |
FREESTYLE MOTOCROSS
Showtime: 7:00 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
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| September 27, 2010 - PA Lottery Day |
 Lady Antebellum - Monday September 27th at 7:30 PM |
LADY ANTEBELLUM
Showtime: 7:30 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
- Track: $46.00
- Grandstand: $41.00
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Lady Antebellum Bio
NEED YOU NOW is the title of Lady Antebellum’s second album, lifted from its leadoff track, which explores the desperate longings that make separated lovers yearn to reconnect in the wee small hours of the morning. But that “need you now” mantra isn’t just a refrain that exes leave on each other’s answering machines in the middle of the night. That message could just as easily serve as an SOS sent out to the group from fans and the music industry. The band’s first album, from 2007, was the very rare freshman effort to debut at No. 1 and/or go Platinum these days, and the emotional connection that was forged with audiences over the short course of several hit singles and high-profile tours clearly left ‘em wanting—no, needing—more.
Thankfully, unlike in the song, we won’t even have to do any drunk-dialing to get what we’ve craved. Less than two years after the trio’s debut first hit stores with a splash, NEED YOU NOWis at hand to satisfy the hunger. There’s been no lull in the roll Lady Antebellum is on. They’ve had back-to-back chart-topping singles, proceeding directly from the previous effort’s “I Run to You” hitting the top spot in July to their “Need You Now” single enjoying a multi-week run at No. 1 just prior to the new album’s release. Even without any pop radio play, “Need You Now” cracked the top 10 of Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100, and the tune went to No. 1 on the iTunes all-genre singles chart.
NEED YOU NOWcomes right on the heels of a couple of prominent Grammy nominations and two key wins at November’s CMA Awards - Single of the Year (“I Run to You”) and Vocal Group of the Year.
The CMAs recognition did bring about a fairly urgent sense of ante-upping. “It puts expectations on us,” says Charles Kelley, who shares lead vocal duties with Hillary Scott. “We already felt like there was a lot to prove after winning Best New Artist the year before—like people are invested in us and saying ‘All right, go get ‘em.’ Which is why we’re excited to get this album out.”
“I’ll be honest,” says Hillary. “Somebody asked me if I was on such a high about the awards, and I said ‘Absolutely,’ But I was thinking to myself, ‘I’m also a little terrified.’ Because you hit a point like that and you really can’t go backwards…”
“Well, we can go backwards,” chimes in Charles, the pragmatist, laughing nervously.
“If anything, though, it makes us want to work harder and record even better songs and continue to grow as performers and prove that we’re deserving of it,” says Hillary.
You can hear that burning flame throughout NEED YOU NOW, which continues their delicate—or delicately rowdy—balance of emotional, gut-level balladry and high-octane, arena-ready rockers. Members of the trio co-wrote eight of the 11 tracks and were able to rely on a much tighter intra-band bond than they had when they were crafting the first album, which was recorded not that long after old pals Charles and Dave got together with new acquaintance Hillary to form the group back in 2006.
“Because of the success of the first record, we could get with some really great songwriters that’ll take an appointment with us now,” says Dave, the group’s guitarist and background vocalist. “But more importantly, the three of us are the closest we’ve ever been as friends. Out on the road, we’ve spent almost every single day together for the past three and a half years. So by the time we were writing songs for this record, I think we’d all learned how to interact with each other better. We can write songs individually, but we definitely have something special when we do it together, and that’s gotten elevated. I know what Hillary is thinking, I know what Charles is thinking, and I think we play off each other a lot better.”
“We would know if something personally was going on with Hillary,” says Charles. “We would say, ‘How about we tap into your personal hell for a little bit? Let’s bring that out in a song!’ When we’re all songwriting, we know what’s going on in everybody’s lives.”
“When they let me talk about it!” laughs Hillary, suggesting that there might be a slight gender divide in the group when it comes to complete candor. “I could see their eyes glaze over. But when we all get into talking about these things together, you get a song like ‘Ready to Love Again’ (the album’s closer) out of it.”
“Songwriting,” Charles asserts, “is almost kind of like our little group therapy.”
Any such therapeutic discussions don’t involve too many regrets about professional roads not taken. Least of all would they have any reason to regret having abandoned the option of solo careers to come together as a group, at a time when the conventional wisdom was that individuals usually work better than bands in marketing country music. There were a few tentative moments during Lady Antebellum’s formation, though, as Charles and Dave danced around the idea of doing anything so brash as forming a band.
“When met Hillary,” says Charles, “she had all these contacts in town and had some development deals—just basically really tied into the system.” She had a bit of a head start on understanding the business, too, being the daughter of the well-known singer Linda Davis. “We were like, “All right, she’s got one of the best voices. We’ve got to write for her project.’ So we got together with her and wrote ‘All We’d Ever Need’ and ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,’ which ended up on the first record. We thought, ‘Wow, this is really great,’ but we didn’t want her to think we were little weasels trying to get in there and ride her coattails.”
Hillary: “And I was sitting there thinking, ‘This takes so much of the pressure off!’ You could not pay me enough money to go back and NOT be in a band. Being a solo artist wasn’t for me. I wasn’t cut out for it. I didn’t handle the pressure at all.” Even now, she eagerly confesses, “I’m the baby of the group. But I’ve grown up!”
For the band itself, there was an element of growing up in public, a little. The debut album itself was an immediate smash, debuting at No. 1 on the country albums chart, an example of a rare phenomenon that is referred to in the arcane parlance of the music industry as… love at first sight. But their first real tour was an arena tour, opening for Martina McBride, and they acknowledge that, as a still fairly newly founded combo, there were rough patches in their performances. “It felt a little early, even though the crowds were really gracious and great to us,” remembers Charles. “Then we said, ‘All right, this is what we need to improve on,’ and we went out to these fairs and festivals and made plenty of mistakes in a safer environment where it wasn’t quite as big a deal if you were to mess up. We did close to 200 shows our first year. Lost a ton of money, because we were doing smaller shows that cost us twice as much as we were getting paid.”
Their live performance chops finally properly in order, they planned to halt their rigorous touring schedule to concentrate on the second album, which they’d planned to put out in 2009. They wrapped up a tour supporting Kenny Chesney and had recorded much of the sophomore effort when the call came in to support Keith Urban on his tour. And faster than you can say “Who Wouldn’t Wanna to Be Me?,” they took the offer, even while regretting delaying the new album. In hindsight, the postponement no longer felt like a mixed blessing, but a complete one.
“At the time we were bummed out, because we had just cut the first half of the record, and we had a big batch of songs and we were ready to go back in and finish,” explains Charles. “But because we didn’t, we had time to write three or four better songs, and then we found a couple of outside songs that we didn’t write that we just had to do”—namely, “American Honey” and “Hello World.” “It was the best thing that ever happened to us, having that gap of time before we came back in and finished the back half of the record. It totally in my mind took the record from here to here,” he says, placing his hand a few inches even higher than his 6-foot-2 frame.
This time, the band nabbed co-producer credit for themselves, with Dave acknowledged by all as the member most comfortable with the ways of the studio. Continuing on in the director’s chair from the last album is veteran Paul Worley, who produced smash albums by some of mainstream country’s biggest stars. “Paul trusts our gut instincts of where we think things should go, but there’s no substitute for his 30 years of experience,” Charles says. “There’s not anything he hasn’t tried on a record in the past, so he’s able to know why this wouldn’t work or this would. I was always the one to want him to stack guitars and thicken the damn thing up, and he was always like, ‘Man, let this thing lie back and live more organic and let every instrument shine through.’ Without someone like that keeping you down, you’d go in there and botch up what was beautiful about the thing in the first place. If I’d just known when I was listening to those first couple of Dixie Chicks records that I would be working with this guy and he would be a fan of what we’re doing, it would have been too wild to believe.”
Of course, Worley realizes that there’s no need to “stack” anything that would get in the way of those harmonies, or the group’s traded-off lead vocals.
With male and female front-people, Hillary says, “I think we’re able to say so much more and reach so many more people. Because there’s no way that I could have been able to put my vocal on a song like ‘Hello World’ and make it believable like Charles did.” The diffused focus also makes for a more dynamic live experience. “When it’s a song I’m singing lead on, Charles and Dave can go be buddy-buddy on stage. When Charles and I do a duet, we can, without being too theatrical, almost play out the songs and tell the story a little bit more, whether we’re making it dramatic or fun and flirty.”
Charles agrees: “Having the two lead vocals there can take people into different journeys. And I think there are people who are just naturally gonna gravitate to her voice that aren’t gonna gravitate to mine, and vice versa. And then on top of it, you’ve got this harmony potential, with Dave. When we mix the record, we don’t even realize how important the three-part harmony is until it’s not there. In the mix, they sometimes tend to blend in together, these two men’s voices. But it warms it up so much. If there was one little piece of the puzzle that wasn’t there on anything, or if his voice was too high or vice versa… We definitely feel very fortunate that we found each other and it all happened.”
Not every song on Need You Now is a heavy one. A tune like “Stars Tonight” is intended as “get up on your feet live song,” as Dave laughingly puts it, “there to remind our fans, ‘Hey, we’re the ones that sing ‘Lookin’ for a Good Time,’ too!’” But for every dose of sheer escapism on the album, there are two shots of unvarnished truth.
“I was up until 5 in the morning one night while we were making the album, writing Dave and Charles an email,” says Hillary. “I stepped back from it and just looked at why we wrote or chose each song, and it hit me that all of these songs are just about feeling to the utmost of your ability. Whether it’s ‘I’m so desperate for you, I miss you so much, I need you NOW’ desperation,’ or ‘American Honey,’ which is nostalgic and wanting to go back to that innocence and sweetness. And then you have ‘Hello World,’ which is this man’s story of this awakening in his soul, opening his eyes and seeing what’s important in his life again.”
“When you’re in the valleys, they suck and it’s not fun, but you appreciate the mountaintop way more whenever you’ve gone through something tough,” Hillary continues. “That’s how I personally try to live my life, just enjoying every moment—but when it hurts, let it hurt. Because you loved something or someone so much, it’s only natural to grieve that. So that’s what I verbalized to them, that I was proud of our ability to be that honest and just lay it all out there.”
NEED YOU NOW has a good deal of subtle mirroring in its themes. “American Honey,” a gorgeous ballad about being awakened to life by wistful remembrance of things past, is followed by “Hello World,” which deals with the same kind of wake-up call, but looking toward a more hopeful future. The album is bookended with two of its most emotionally naked numbers; the closing “Ready to Love Again,” which Hillary calls “probably the most personal song on the record,” provides a sort of answer to the title track, which opens the album.
They’re still a little surprised that “Need You Now,” as a single, made such a quick trip to the top of the chart. “Honestly, I thought it would be a grind,” Charles says. But I know there’s something honest in it that people gravitate toward.”
To paraphrase Casablanca, this feels like the second step in a beautiful friendship. “With ‘I Run to You’ being our first No. 1, it was really the first moment where I felt like with us as artists and the audience, the puzzle pieces fit,” Hillary says. “They figured out more about what we wanted to say and the kind of artists we were, and that’s what they ended up liking. And then the same thing with having our second No. 1 be ‘Need You Now,’ this song that we believe in its honesty and vulnerability so much. It’s exciting to feel like that bond is just growing, and we’re getting tighter in that relationship. Like, they get us! We get them! This is great!” Here’s to many more years of both sides getting their needs met.
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 David Nail opening for Lady Antebellum Monday September 27th |
DAVID NAIL
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David Nail Bio
Growing up in a small southeastern Missouri town, David Nail might’ve chosen to follow any of the dreams that drifted by like the riverboats on the mighty Mississippi: but in the end, it was music that called his name. “I was definitely more into sports growing up,” says the Midwest native, “I think I was expected to play in college, but as I grew older I became more interested in music. After my senior year, I had a few small college offers to play baseball. My coach came to me and said ‘David, you need to decide where you’re going to school,’ and out of the blue I just said, ‘Do you know anybody in Nashville?’”
For singer-songwriter Nail, it was a history-making moment -- small town boy decides to chase a big city dream -- and a theme that has informed his music ever since. On his first album from MCA Nashville, he neatly bridges the divide, laying claim to his hometown roots while keeping a firm grip on the future, and all the deeply emotional territory in between.
“I feel like regardless of where you grew up, city, small town, east coast, west coast or whatever, there’s something in this music that you can relate to,” he says. “They might not all be exactly the same, but everyone has those moments; the first time you left home, falling in love, losing love. That’s what moves me, what I can dig into.”
Nail, son of a former high school band director, cut his musical teeth on a record collection that included Stevie Wonder, Elton John and the Beatles. “Elton John was one of the main reasons I started singing, and is still a tremendous influence,” he says. “I think he and the Beatles are probably two of the greatest melody makers of all time.” Then he moved on to country: “I ‘discovered’ country music in the early 90’s along with everyone else my age,” he says, “but I guess I kind of got more obsessive than everybody else. I found myself looking back as far as the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, exposing myself to some of the biggest stars of that era. It was then that I fell in love with Glen Campbell, who is still one of my all-time favorites.”
Drawn to Music City after high school, Nail took that first step on his long and winding road, following the music. “I had been to Nashville as a small child but I had no memories of what it was like and obviously had no idea what the music business was like,” he says. “I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.” Overwhelmed, he ended up moving back to Missouri in less than a year.
Returning to Nashville two years later, Nail became frustrated once again in early 2005 with the lack of movement with his music career. David spent the next two summers helping an old college buddy coach the Twitty City Knights, a select group of some of Nashville’s best baseball talent. “I did it just to get away from the reality of what my career had become at that time, and it was being around those kids that recharged my batteries. It reminded me how free and easy life is at 17 and 18 years old and how truly blessed I’d been, both growing up, and now, being able to chase my dream. I will forever look back on that time and those kids for getting me back on track.” Shortly thereafter, mutual friend Brian Wright, who’d recently become V.P., A&R, for both the MCA and Mercury Nashville labels, introduced Nail to Frank Liddell, who 10 years earlier had produced one of Nail’s all-time favorite records, Chris Knight’s self-titled Decca debut.
Through the ups and downs of a life in the music business, Nail was persistent – and his dream became a realization with I’m About To Come Alive, a collection of songs that captures the highs and lows and the hometown flavor of his own experiences. “I wanted to take something from the people who’ve inspired me,” he says, “but also put myself in there, and just make something I could be proud of. It’s definitely a moody record, there’s definitely going to be some heartbreak in there, definitely going to be some dark times. But there’s music you listen to when you’re feeling good, and music you listen to when you’re down and out, and I think this is a record that satisfies both needs.”
From the second he started recording, Nail was determined to bridge the gap between traditional country and the soulful styling’s of a Lionel Ritchie and Ray Charles. “I’ve got to have a piano player with a lot of fire, a little more recklessness!” he says. Liddell (Miranda Lambert) offered up legendary player Chuck Leavell, who brought his inspired piano into the mix with Nail’s smooth, yet soulful vocals to create magic on tracks like “Mississippi.” “It’s a very reflective ballad about a guy from a small town who’s in the city,” Nail says. “Very moody and Ray Charles-esque. Chuck went in there and started playing the intro and suddenly I felt as if I was back in those early days of recording. His playing sent me to another level of singing.”
“Turning Home” had that same soulful emotion and drew Nail’s attention as a demo. “When I first heard it, it was a lot of what I was feeling at the time. I just kept listening to it over and over. I felt like I had always been searching for a song I could really sing, put some emotion, pain and hurt into, and then here was this song,” he said. The result is a perfect match between singer and song, with that same church-meets-honky-tonk piano on the side, and vocals reminiscent of another one of Nail’s big influences, Vince Gill.
Nail wrote five of the eleven I’m About To Come Alive tracks, including “Missouri.” “I was in the middle of a two-year bout with depression,” said Nail. “It’s without a doubt the most honest and personal song I’ve written. I’d been in a relationship for a year or so and could sense something was wrong with me. It was more or less me crying out, pleading for her to leave me because I didn’t have the courage to do it myself.” Along side Scooter Carusoe “Anything But Mine” Nail also wrote “Clouds,” which, he explains, is about one of his most recent misses at romance. “The best songs I’ve ever written just kind of come to me. You don’t have a choice in the matter, they just more or less pour out. Both ‘Missouri’ and ‘Clouds’ were like that.”
With all that emotion going into his songs, he admits he’s a guy who’s always looking for the happy ending. “This is a confession – I’m a man of many extremes, whether working or playing,” he says. “I’m a songwriter, so I’m a sensitive guy. I long for the storybook life.” And it’s produced a lot of good material. “I think the really great singers and writers are able to dig a little deeper and find that other level of emotion,” Nail says. “And I think that’s what makes them better than the rest. I always pride myself on trying to find that place with every song.”
And it’s that moment of raw emotional connection that Nail hopes to pass on to listeners. “I’m more or less just trying to join the fray of good music,” he says. “People ask me all the time how I’d describe my music and I say ‘Well, I hope it’s good.’ Hopefully people will just enjoy it for being good music and take from it whatever it makes them feel.”
Hard knocks and heartache, good times and bad, small towns and big cities – it’s all in his music. “They’re all aspects of life,” he says. “I’m still growing as both a person and artist, and will hopefully continue getting better in regards to both.”
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| September 28, 2010 - Triple AAA Day |
 Craig Morgan with Gloriana - Tuesday September 28, 2010 at 7:30 PM |
CRAIG MORGAN
Showtime: 7:30 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
- Track: $35.00
- Grandstand: $30.00
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 Gloriana opening for Craig Morgan Tuesday September 28th |
GLORIANA
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Gloriana Bio
Amid the soaring four-part harmonies and electric stage presence, it's clear that Gloriana represents an exciting new and vibrant force in country music. The group--Tom Gossin, Mike Gossin, Rachel Reinert and Cheyenne Kimball--consists of four uniquely talented and enthusiastic young musicians joining forces to create a fresh, one-of-a-kind sound that reflects the best of today's Nashville.
From the outset, Gloriana has been winning supporters at all levels from Grammy-winning producer/label executive Matt Serletic and premiere Nashville songwriter Jeffrey Steele to the fans who've already had the chance to experience them live. They’re self-titled debut album, reflects both the sheer talent of its members and the level of commitment they have put into making every note count.
Gloriana got its start in the winter of 2007, when brothers Tom and Mike, who had moved to Nashville after sweating it out in clubs in North Carolina, discovered Rachel.
"We had never combined our duo with a female voice before," says Mike, "but singing with her gave us that high harmony and opened us up to something new.”
It wasn’t long after seeing the group perform at 3rd and Lindsley that Cheyenne fell in love with Gloriana. “When I saw them perform for the first time, it renewed my passion for music,” said Cheyenne. So immediately after the show, she asked the trio if she could get together with them and jam. When they did, it was magic.
"The three of us definitely felt we had something special," says Rachel, "but when Cheyenne came into the picture, the four-part harmony completed us. Her skills on the mandolin, combined with the guys’ guitar talent helped us to replicate the group’s live sound. It felt complete.”
From that point on, commitment was everything. "We spent the next six months getting our songs and our live sound together," says Tom. "We accomplished a lot, working non-stop, playing shows, making sure we were tight and ready to go."
The band sent a demo to Emblem Music Group, the new label founded by Matt Serletic, known for his work with Willie Nelson and Matchbox Twenty, among many others. Emblem is an evolution of Melisma Records, Serletic’s Diamond
and multi-Platinum award-winning label, with over 50 million album sales to its credit.
“The first time I heard Gloriana I was blown away,” says Serletic. “I don’t think that I’ve ever heard four distinctive, powerful singers combine to create such a unique, fresh sound. These talented young musicians were meant to make music together.”
An intense creative process got underway. “Emblem helped to introduce us to some of the best that Nashville has to offer,” says Rachel. Serletic began writing with one of Nashville’s finest songwriters, Jeffrey Steele (Rascal Flatts, Trace Adkins, Tim McGraw, etc.) and co-wrote their high-energy debut single “Wild At Heart” with Josh Kear and Stephanie Bentley. At the same time Gloriana was collaborating with a talented array of Nashville songwriters including Trey Bruce, Kyle Cook, Ben Glover, Chuck Jones, Kevin Kadish, Wayne Kirkpatrick, and Danny Myrick.
The band members moved in together and secluded themselves to begin making their mark on the songs. “We spent an intense month putting our stamp on the songs," says Tom. "In our minds it’s critical; it’s what makes the music authentic, heartfelt and true.”
One at a time, they worked up songs, and performed them before the best critics that any artist has…the fans.
“Playing for a live audience helped us to know what worked and what didn’t work,” said Cheyenne. “It really was valuable to do that before entering the studio.”
“By the time we went into the studio we knew exactly what we were doing and how we wanted the songs to sound,” adds Rachel. “Guess you could say that the fans helped us to make this record.”
That sense of assurance and the hard work they put in are evident in every track of their debut CD. The feels vary from “The Way It Goes” and “How Far Do You Wanna Go?,” which display the four-part harmonies, energy and big sound that make the group so exciting on stage, to “Lead Me On” and “All The Things (That Mean The Most),” songs whose passion and intimacy are undeniable.
“I know how much music has impacted all of our lives,” said Tom. “It connects us all, it moves us and it can change a person,” added Mike. “We hope that our music will do that for others for a long time to come.”
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| September 29, 2010 - Kohr's Orange Ade Day |
 REO Speedwagon - Wednesday September 29th at 7:30 PM |
REO SPEEDWAGON
Showtime: 7:30 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
- Track: $35.00
- Grandstand: $30.00
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REO Speedwagon Bio
Sure, you can call the members of REO Speedwagon rock stars. But if you have to label them, here’s the more accurate term they prefer: Working musicians.
Formed in 1967, signed in 1971 and fronted by iconic vocalist Kevin Cronin since 1972, REO Speedwagon has – for decades – been a confounding blend of consistency and change.
They rode in station wagons, going from tiny gigs to even tinier gigs, just to get the REO name out in the early days. Later they rode the top of the charts with a RIAA certified 22 million albums sold in the U.S. and 40 million around the globe, with a string of gold and platinum records and international hit singles. The 9-times certified Hi Infidelity remains a high-water mark for rock bands.
Make all the “Ridin’ The Storm Out” or “Roll With The Changes” cracks you want, but that’s exactly what the band has done. REO Speedwagon has that Midwest work ethic.
The band has gone onstage and in the studio and done the work, year after year – dozens of albums, hundreds (or thousands?) of concerts, infinite radio spins. The eyes have always been on the future and on the road – not a year has gone by where REO Speedwagon didn’t perform live, thrilling fans with hits like “Keep On Loving You” and “Can’t Fight This Feeling.”
And yes, they do roll with the changes. With the modern-day music industry disintegrating, the band members recorded Find Your Own Way Home in 2007 and put it out themselves through Walmart – and personally drove to radio stations across the country to get it heard. Ultimately the album (yes, REO Speedwagon still makes albums, not a bunch of songs) had more success than it would ever see with a record company. Whatever the band members need to do to connect with fans, they do it.
“We're still doing it and still going strong,” Cronin says.
Cronin (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards) has always cast an eye to the future, along with band-mates Bruce Hall (bass), Neal Doughty (keyboards), Dave Amato (lead guitar) and Bryan Hitt (drums). It wasn’t a surprise to Cronin to see the industry run aground.
“I think maybe the music industry needed to fall a little bit because it was getting bloated and there were just too many people putting out CDs with one or two good songs on them and eventually that's gonna backfire,” Cronin says.
What never backfires is a great live show. In 2009 REO Speedwagon hits the road on the Can’t Stop Rockin’ Tour with STYX and 38 Special, three of the hardest working bands in America. Sponsored by VH1 and Rock Band®, the tour is a recession-buster night of rock ‘n’ roll, offering the best value this year, with some tickets as low as $13.50.
What do people want to hear these days? Hope. Passion. A reason to do the things we do. And songwriter Cronin is a longtime fan of hope.
“I am an optimistic person,” Cronin says. “In every song I have ever written, no matter the depth of darkness from which it was conceived, there has always been a message of hope. My own songs often serve to remind me that in the toughest of times, hope must remain undying.”
To that end REO and STYX have teamed up on a new single, “Can’t Stop Rockin’,” co-written by Cronin and STYX’s Tommy Shaw.
When the talk turns to benefit concerts the names that come to mind are George Harrison, U2 and Bob Geldof. REO has quietly done its share, sans self-serving promotional tours, from appearing at the Live Aid concert in 1985, to a benefit for port authority workers after 9/11 and recent MusiCares shows, along with a “Ridin’ The Storm Out” benefit concert that raised more than a half-million dollars for Iowa flood relief in 2008.
In what little downtime he has, Cronin stays busy with appearances on shows like Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and his own writing on his blog at KevinCronin.com. He recently appeared on FOX-TV’s Don’t Forget the Lyrics!
It’s a busy life, but it always has been for the band. Formed loosely in the late ‘60s at college in Champaign, IL, REO (famously named after a fire engine) and its fans quickly realized there was much more going on here than your average frat-party band.
By the early ‘70s the band’s unrelenting drive, non-stop touring and recording jump-started the burgeoning rock movement in the Midwest. It carved a path eventually followed by STYX, Kansas, Cheap Trick and more. Platinum albums and freeform FM radio staples such as “Ridin’ The Storm Out” followed, setting the stage for 1980’s explosive Hi Infidelity.
The band’s younger fans might not realize the sheer impact Hi Infidelity had on music and the culture of rock ‘n’ roll. Its 9 million in sales was fueled by huge hit singles in “Keep On Loving You” and “Take It On the Run.” High Infidelity spent months in the #1 slot, a feat simply unattainable in music today. The strong run continued with hits like “Can’t Fight This Feeling” up through the new “Can’t Stop Rockin’.”
Today it’s all about what it has always been – taking good care of the band’s legacy while keeping the focus on the future. That may be even more important these days, Cronin believes.
"The world is going through a weird phase, and everybody needs music now more than ever. We all need to join our friends, pool our resources, combine our energies, because there is power in people coming together,” he says.
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| September 30, 2010 - Sunset Ice Cream Day |
 Jeff Dunham - Thursday September 30th at 7:30 PM |
JEFF DUNHAM
Showtime: 7:30 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
- Track: $58.00
- Grandstand: $53.00
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Jeff Dunham Bio
With humor that transcends any and all demographic boundaries, Jeff Dunham is consistently setting and breaking records and conquering every realm he enters. Over the last decade, he and his hilarious troupe of comedic sidekicks have risen from the standup comedy clubs to charm the world and become an unprecedented entertainment phenomenon with an astounding international 360-degree reach.
With staggering and ever-growing DVD sales of more than five million, the highest rated season premiere ever on Comedy Central with his debut television series "The Jeff Dunham Show," 300 million worldwide views on You Tube, consistently packed and sold out shows in 7,000 to 10,000 seat venues, and a briskly-selling line of some 50 items of merchandise offered at his concerts, on his website and in retail stores across North America, he has a comedic gift that turns laughter into overwhelming success. Declared by Time magazine as "perhaps the most popular comedian in the U.S." as well as "America's favorite" by Slate, his audience appeal has fostered a constantly burgeoning following of loyal and loving fans who savor his concerts, TV appearances, DVDs, CDs and YouTube clips again and again and fervently spread the word on Dunham and his winning characters.
The secret to Dunham's comedic genius and unprecedented success is found in the believably real personalities he has created that are his partners in hilarity: Walter the grumpy retiree; the beer-swilling, NASCAR loving and resolutely redneck Bubba J; the furry and manic Peanut; Jose Jalapeno, the spicy pepper from south of the border; and the bumbling skeletal Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Although Dunham can rightfully be declared one of the funniest humans on the planet, it's his interactions with them as they banter, quip, kid and vie with each other that makes their comedy so distinctive, potent and irresistibly funny. They may have been conceived and crafted by Dunham, but his characters, who are anything but dummies, have now taken on a life of their own and are stars of everything Dunham does.
Recently named by Forbes to its Celebrity 100 list of most powerful entertainers, Dunham enjoys a unique multi-year, multi-platform deal with Comedy Central that includes his series "The Jeff Dunham Show," future one-hour comedy specials, a 2010 tour sponsored by the cable channel and DVD distribution through Comedy Central Home Entertainment. It follows in the wake of his record-setting late 2008 one-hour holiday celebration "A Very Special Christmas Special," which drew 6.6 million viewers on its premiere airing to become the channel's most-watched program ever, following in the wake of top ratings for his previous Comedy Central specials "Arguing with Myself" (April 2006) and "Spark of Insanity" (September 2007). Dunham has also struck content partnerships with YouTube (where his Achmed clip is the fourth most all-time viewed and third all-time video designated as a favorite), Amazon.com (whose customers rated "Spark of Insanity" the best DVD of 2008) and iTunes. Dunham was also declared the top-grossing live comedy act of 2008 by the concert industry trade magazine Pollstar.
It all began when Dunham was growing up in the Dallas, Texas area -- where his hometown Dallas Morning News hails him as "easily one of the funniest stand-up comics alive" -- with a Mortimer Snerd dummy and an instruction manual and LP he got when he was eight years old. Throughout his teen years the comedian performed anywhere and everywhere he could find an audience. After graduating from Baylor University, he moved to Los Angeles and was soon a sensation on the national comedy club circuit, renewing a lost art that he has taken to new levels of finesse and technique with hilarious results. But Dunham saw even wider horizons for his talents. "I knew if we could let the masses see it and not just the comedy-club fans, then it would explode," he says.
Frequent guest appearances on "The Tonight Show" and "Late Night with David Letterman" as well as a host of other TV and radio programs set the stage for what was to come. Eventually he was voted "Funniest Male Stand-Up Comic" at the American Comedy Awards and became the only person to ever win the prestigious "Ventriloquist of the Year" award twice. With his debut self-produced Comedy Central special "Arguing With Myself" -- which quickly sold over one million DVDs (compared with average comedy DVD sales of 35,000) -- Dunham's popularity exploded. Soon fans were posting clips of his routines on the Internet and they went viral and had a rapid climb to tens of millions of views.
In 2008, Dunham sold out headlining major venue shows at the prestigious and star-studded Comedy Festival in Las Vegas and the Just For Laughs festival in Toronto, and his first CD, "Don't Come Home For Christmas," jumped to #1 in comedy sales and #6 in overall CD sales in preorders alone when it was announced on Amazon, and entered the Billboard Independent Album charts in the Top 10.
Then in 2009, he triumphed on his first-ever full nationwide tour of Canada, wowed audiences with his debut appearances and sold out shows in five European capital cities, and without performing there previously, completely sold out a four-show visit to Australia in November of 2009. [All three specials have been released on television, DVD, and mobile platforms in Canada, UK, Benelux, Scandinavia, Italy, France, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The DVD of "A Very Special Christmas Special" topped the Danish entertainment chart and "Spark of Insanity" hit the Top 5 of the overall DVD charts in Holland (#2) and South Africa (#5). "Spark of Insanity" is the most viewed show ever on Comedy Central Holland, and upon their initial release the only two titles by an American in the Top 20 of the U.K. comedy DVD charts are both Jeff Dunham specials.
"The Jeff Dunham Show" (Fall 2009) forged a new mode of television comedy as it shows the life of the comedian and his characters for the other 23 hours of the day when they are not onstage. They interact out in the world and at home with real people in real locations to uproarious results. The show was the highest rated premiere ever on Comedy Central and garnered 5.3 million viewers in its first airing. Late 2009 also saw a cameo Dunham appearance on the Emmy-winning comedy series "30 Rock," and he has a film cameo in the upcoming Jay Roach-directed comedy "Dinner For Schmucks."
Dunham has done it all as an independent business entity that creates, produces and finances his TV specials/DVDs, merchandise, tours and more, and through a highly interactive relationship with his fans via his website, social networking platforms, and an email list to rival any in the entertainment industry.
By now Dunham has become a part of popular culture, and such character catchphrases as Achmed's "Silence! I Keel You!" and Jose Jalapeno's "On A Steek!'" are embedded in the contemporary lexicon. He has developed a brand of comedy that is edgy yet has mass mainstream appeal, taking his cues from the stuff of everyday life and people he and we all know.
It's all part of Dunham's mission to not just entertain but touch people's lives. "As a standup comic, it is my job to make the majority of people laugh, and I truly believe that comedy is the last true form of free speech and that laughter can heal many wounds."
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| October 1, 2010 - Ford Motor Corp. |
 Theory of a Deadman - Friday October 1st at 7:30 PM |
THEORY OF A DEADMAN
Showtime: 7:30 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
- Track: #37.00
- Grandstand: $32.00
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Theory Of A Deadman Biography
Theory of a Deadman had a simple but daunting goal for its third album: to make the greatest record possible.
"I always try to remind the guys and myself that there are 20 bands lined up behind us just waiting for a chance to take our place," says frontman Tyler Connolly. "So that means we had to go in there and make a great record." With Scars & Souvenirs, the Vancouver trio has hit its mark.
The balanced 13-track effort is the polished and passionate testament to seven years of hard work, heavy touring and diligent attention to its craft. From the swirling grind of "By the Way" to the nasty snarl of "Crutch" to the soaring melodicism of "Not Meant to Be" and "Wait For Me," Scars & Souvenirs is a broad-reaching endeavor that puts Connolly, guitarist Dave Brenner and bassist Dean Back high in the rock pantheon, achieving creative growth without sacrificing the hard-hitting power that got them here in the first place.
"We really dug hard on this one," Connolly notes. "The longer you're in a band, the more you write songs, the better you get. We've had such a great opportunity to figure out what to do better, how to write a better song and keep building and building. That's exciting for us."
Scars & Souvenirs began taking shape in February of 2007, as Theory was winding down from touring to support its second album, 2005's Gasoline, a slump-defying sophomore outing that launched the hits "No Surprise," "Say Goodbye," "Santa Monica" and "Hello Lonely (Walk Away From This)." The group returned to Grammy-nominated producer Howard Benson, who in turn issued marching orders that set the tone for the project.
"Before we even went into the studio, Howard wanted to gear this record up to sound huge," Connolly recalls about Benson's "all killer, no filler" approach to the record. "He said, ‘You have to go into a record with great songs. You can't make them while you're there. You can't just go in with one or two great songs. You've got to have 10.' So we just kept sending him songs until we had the 10 to 12 great ones, and then he said, 'OK, let's go.'"
Theory actually brought about 17 songs to Los Angeles' Bay 7 studios in August of 2007. Amidst low-key hijinks -- Brenner and Back grew mustaches, Connolly sported a fake one in the name of band unity -- the group and studio drummer Robin Diaz recorded 15 before choosing the 12 that ultimately comprise Scars & Souvenirs, which proved an apt title for the range of emotions Connolly sings about on the album.
"It's the Scars & Souvenirs of your life," he explains. "The songwriting on the record is really about someone's past or and present, their relationships and how they shape everything. It's more metaphorical than physical scars and trophies."
And while Connolly has certainly done his turn as a rock 'n' roll king of pain on Gasoline and 2002's attention-catching debut Theory of a Deadman, he went into Scars & Souvenirs determined to show he could be more than the "callous bastard" Rolling Stone magazine called him in an early profile.
Here, Connolly explores broad new lyrical terrain, indicative of his growth as a person and as songwriter. "For awhile there, every song was, 'Get the f*&k out! I don't need women! Screw them!' That's kinda how I felt at that point," Connolly says with a self-effacing laugh. "But I've grown as a songwriter, and as a person. I wanted to write some different, nicer songs for a change."
He didn't have to look hard for inspiration. He wrote "Wait For Me," with its acoustic guitar underpinning and rich chorus, for his wife, paying tribute to her fortitude in being home alone while he's on the road. The piano-laden "All or Nothing," meanwhile, chronicles their relationship, which began as a good friendship before blossoming into romance. "It was kind of sick of me writing all these woman-hater songs before," acknowledges Connolly, whose mother left his family when he was in high school, providing rich source material for his earlier work. "People thought I was writing about my wife." While Connolly's lyrics have taken on a kinder, gentler pallor on Scars & Souvenirs, the band continues to keep the knobs cranked to 11.
Connolly also went into Scars & Souvenirs trying to write some songs that were "just for fun," and succeeded with tracks such as "End of Summer," an anthem about the bittersweetness of endings, whether that of a season or a relationship.
But even though the album mines a deeper emotional trough, it charges with the same potent force of its predecessors. When fans eagerly crank up the likes of "So Happy," "Got it Made" and "Bad Girlfriend," they'll end up with a set of blown out speakers, thanks to the firepower that crackles in these rockers, while "Sacrifice" bristles with the kind of primal, super-charged defiance that has long defined the best hard rock.
"A lot of bands, they grow older and they get grayer and they just can't do the rock songs anymore," Connolly says. "I don't see that happening to us. Fans are gonna hear our record and hear some softer stuff, but we're a rock band. I think it sounds bigger than the other two (albums) we've done."
Which is, not surprisingly, why Connolly, Brenner and Back are chomping at the bit to take Scars & Souvenirs out on the road. "We really want to take the band farther this time," Connolly says. "We want to get out there to places we have not been before - where a lot of our fans are --Asia, Australia, as well as reaching our fans in North America and Europe. We're just a hard-working band, man. We want to be out there for a couple of years and play these songs to everybody we possibly can."
With an album like Scars & Souvenirs, the fans will be lining up to listen.
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 Default opening for Theory of a Deadman |
DEFAULT
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DEFAULT BIO
Dallas Smith – vocals
Jeremy Hora – guitar
Dave Benedict – bass guitar
Danny Craig – drums
Four years is a long time between records, and the members of Default – Dallas Smith (vocals), Jeremy Hora (guitar), Dave Benedict (bass) and Danny Craig (drums) – know it. Comes and Goes, out September 29 through EMI Music Canada, was supposed to come out in the spring of 2008. But Default’s former label, TVT Records, went bankrupt that February, and all their assets, including the rights to Comes and Goes (then titled Still Standing), were auctioned off to The Orchard, an online independent music distributor. When – and even if – Default’s record would be released was, at that point, a mystery.
“It was a mixed bag of emotions,” says bassist Dave Benedict. “It almost feels like you’re reborn again and you’re taking your first steps, and who’s going to hold your hand to help you learn how to walk again?”
Default’s career got off to a decidedly more auspicious start when they were, for lack of a better word, discovered by Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger shortly after forming in Vancouver back in 1999.
Kroeger’s interest in their demo led him to lend his support to the production of their debut album. The Fallout (2001) boasted strong singles like ‘Deny’, ‘Count On Me’ and ‘Wasting My Time’, the latter of which was a hit at both Canadian and American radio. A Juno for Best New Group followed in 2002, and The Fallout was certified platinum (one million copies sold) in the States in 2003.
Default’s subsequent albums, 2003’s Elocation (nominated for a Best Rock Album Juno) and 2005’s One Thing Remains, continued to refine the melodic rock sound of their debut, even as their approach got heavier and more aggressive. When the time came to record their fourth album, Default went back to producer Bob Marlette (Ozzy Osbourne, Shinedown), who had also helmed 2005’s One Thing Remains.
“He just took the band sonically to a good place,” says Dallas. “He’s really great to work with. I really enjoyed doing my vocal takes, and I thought he had really good suggestions where I should go with the vocals. I just thought all his ideas were great. It was just an easy fit. We knew what we were getting into and thought he brought good stuff out of the band.”
Recorded in Los Angeles, Comes and Goes was mixed in December 2007, and everyone in the band felt, clichés aside, that they had topped themselves. “Right off the bat we knew this was a special album and that it came together exactly the way we wanted it to.” Says Dallas, “We really believed in this record, and we knew it needed to see the light of day.”
So Default held on. They toured weekends and spent much of 2008 cutting through the red tape that would get their music back into their own hands, eventually signing a deal with EMI Music Canada this past spring.
The first taste of the new record (Comes and Goes), Default offered its still-devoted fan base was the rock single ‘All Over Me’, an up tempo celebration of (one-sided) true love marked by a catchy riff from Jeremy and an anthemic chorus voiced by Dallas.
“We tried to get away from the bad relationship stuff,” Dallas says of the band’s direction on Comes and Goes. “There are a couple of very positive love songs on this record. There’s one about my son,” entitled ‘Caught In The Moment’. “It’s a song for him. Me and his mum divorced when he was really young. It’s kind of a song for him to listen back to, and he can kind of see where my headspace was later on in his life.”
The second single, ‘Little Too Late’, is an epic ballad destined to inspire thousands of waving cell phones and cigarette lighters during the band’s upcoming tours, which they prepared for by playing a number of Canadian festivals this summer, as well as a gig in May for US troops stationed in South Korea.
“I really thought that trip brought the band together,” says Dallas. “Because we’d been stagnate we really wanted something cool and different to happen for us. We just really got into being a band again. And I think that trip really saved us.”
The members of Default are eager to take the songs of Comes and Goes directly to the fans that have flocked to their shows and bombarded their MySpace with comments, most of them expressing anticipation for new Default music.
“God bless them all because they’ve kept the lights on in my house,” says Dave sincerely. “They’ve kept food on the table and kept my babies fed. Without them, we’d be nothing. It’s something that’s kept all four of us together and kept us going through all that shit. We would go out and play, and the people were still coming out to the shows after how many years being away, not having a current single on the radio to promote. It’s a glorious feeling. It’s just like, wow, in this industry and in this day and age, how fast people forget. People still remember that we are a good rock band, that we put on a good show, that we entertain. We give them what they want, and therefore they reward us by showing up.”
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| October 1, 2010 - Ford Motor Corp. |
 Horse Pulling Contest |
Horse Pulling Contests
Ticket Price: $5.00
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| October 2, 2010 - Solar Universe |
 Figure 8 Racing - October 2nd at 7:00 PM |
FIGURE 8 RACING
Showtime: 1:00 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
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 Worlds Largest Demolition Derby - October 2nd at 1:00 PM |
WORLDS LARGEST DEMOLITION DERBY
Showtime: 7:00 PM
Venue: Grandstand
Ticket Price:
- Grandstand: TBA
- Bleacher: TBA
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