Mayfest! I didn’t have the money, or the time to go to Mayfest. But, you know the siren call of Hanson…. Me, Stephanie, Ella, and Gina had all planned a trip to Florida way back in the winter. Stephanie and I have done if for three years now, it’s sort of a tradition. We sit around doing nothing but watching videos, reading, writing, and discussing what we’ve written, or are going to write. This year, a couple more great writers signed on. Fun, fun times! Enter Hanson…The week after our Florida getaway, Hanson is scheduled to do Mayfest in Tulsa. Now, I don’t have a job anymore (because of Hanson) and I do have a family (not because of Hanson). So, it’s not easy for me to plan a vacation like that. If Hanson had told us about all this before, we’d have just substituted Tulsa for Florida. Alas, Hanson probably didn’t know diddly about the whole thing back in the winter, but you know, when you can blame them for something, I say go for it. So, Hanson decided to get me in trouble, once again, and I went for it.

At first, Stephanie and I were going to be strong—“We don’t need to see them. We’ve seen them before. We’ll see the documentary when it comes out. It’s not like we’ll NEVER see it…” Etc etc. It went like that. But then of course, reason flies out the window (as it so often does when Hanson is involved…) and we thought—dang, if we don’t see it, then the big mouths at Hanson.net will spoil it for us. You know it’s true, don’t act like we don’t spill every little detail over there!!! Then, Melanie started saying she wanted to go. Chelsea wanted to go. Ivy wanted to go. I mean, how could I disappoint them? I broke the news to David (not an easy thing to do) and we started making plans.

Florida was a wonderful time, as usual. I wrote like, 30 pages. Stephanie wrote a lot as well. Ella came in on schedule, and her suitcase was a marvel at around 2 tons. Gina’s plane was on time, but they’d lost her luggage. She borrowed an Ale8 shirt from Ella and we set about the business of discussing Hanson World, LJ friends, stories, and the upcoming festivities of Mayfest, which we’d all caved in to. Ella signed on to the trip from Kentucky to Tulsa and the group grew to 5. Stephanie would fly in from Utah, see the show and the doc, then head back to Utah all within 12 hours (and then be at work right after her flight came in!!!) Now, that is dedication! Gina would fly in from Maryland. My gosh—I’ll say it again—someone needs to study the effect Hanson has on their fans, making them do irrational things constantly!

Our Florida trip ended, and three days later, the Mayfest Mayhem began. I packed again, rented a van (the Jeep got cranky) and a hotel room and we were off. We were driving to Springfield MO to spend the night with my niece Laura who we’d be kidnapping because she’s always been very not-understanding of my HansonLove. In fact, she may have even been known to have called one of them “monkey boy” at times—not mentioning any names…

First stop—Rolla, MO. And I do mean “stop”. Traffic just stopped. We sat and sat. For two hours. Finally, the boys in the car in front of us got out and decided to play Frisbee. Unfortunately, none of them were hot enough to keep our interest much, so the only fun we got out of that was watching them trade off on picking their noses and wiping them on their arms and such. Boys. Finally, we decided since they weren’t entertaining us, we’d entertain them. MMMBop was cranked and voila!!! Boys got back in their car. That song has incredible power over people. Another nice result, traffic started moving. We’ll just call that “the mmmbop effect”.

Next stop—Springfield. And sleep. We had a bed, two air mattresses and a couch taking up most of Laura’s house, so, it was all good. Next morning, we showered, ate cereal, and headed for Tulsa.

Stop #3—HansonHotel…errr, Ramada Inn…no wait, Western Something or Other. Anyway—we got room #1000. It was hot. There were no towels. No cots. Hey! Everybody else had six to a room minimum too!!! You knew the Hanson Hotel wouldn’t be organized or prepared! We put a sign on the door, like everyone else. And no, Melanie’s screen name is not really CockLobster—the paper just had a fold in it that made it look that way.

Subway was calling Ella—do you know that she can eat like 8 times a day? Well, she can. It’s a glorious thing to see, really. So, we go to Subway where we’re asked if we’re there to see Hanson—you can just tell, y’know? The girl tells us she was just involved in a play with Zoe and Mackenzie. Gossip just jumps on us, even when we don’t seek it out. The Hanson Grapevine is a real entity, living and breathing…speaking of which, we get a phone call from two different people telling us Hanson is doing a soundcheck at the stage at 1:30…

2:30—Hanson gets to soundcheck! My God, is it hot out there! Really, Taylor should have just kicked those slippers he borrowed from his Grandpa off, cuz it was nasty out there. But, at least they were in the shade. The fans that were there (I’d say maybe 200 of us…) were roasting. Sheesh. Was it worth it? Hell yes, you know it was. Lots of snippets of songs—some which mysteriously never got played at the show, were tossed around by the guys. Taylor just sings “I don’t know the words, lalala, nanana” if he isn’t up on the lyrics. Just a little tidbit there for all the trivia freaks reading this.

Ella had brought along a gorgeous set of ads/fliers she’d done for Hanson—beautiful stuff. I’m hoping as much as she is that they take her up on her offer of free and/or paid work for them. Really, hiring a professional is sometimes a good thing! So, anywho—we see Jessica come out and we think, oh, now there’s someone who has inside contacts. I mean, how much more inside could you get? So, Ella grabs Melanie and they take off. While they’re talking to her, Mr. Hanson (also known as Walker) comes out and I think, oh, another insider, and this one has a little more seniority!!! So, I casually stroll over to Ella as she’s coming back from HansonLand and tell her she should talk to him as well. She makes me come with her, as if I have any more balls than she does. In any event, he’s very very nice and he actually asks her where she’s from, what she does, etc etc. So, in my mind, I think she did what she set out to do. In fact, probably, it’s better to get it in the hands of their Dad, than an actual HansonBandMember Hanson. I mean, I’m sure his mind is less cluttered than theirs.

So, soundcheck was exciting in many ways! This is how hot it was out there, though—we almost left with Hanson right there on the stage. Fortunately for us, we didn’t have to do that though (cuz it would have been hard!). I tried repeatedly to call Stephanie, but her new phone has no voicemail and she was obviously in the air. She called me just after it was over. Sigh. After an hour and a half or so, it had ended, they’d gone to their bus, and we went back to the hotel to shower and such for the second time that day. My unfortunate haircut from a couple days previous looked absolutely striking when I took off my Joe Dirt hat (hey, it’s not like I own a lot of hats!). Oh well, it’s not like I was actually going to be face to face with a Hanson. Of course, I’m sure they wouldn’t judge nearly as harshly as the Hanson Faithful…

So, we chilled in the hotel room, got in touch with folks we were dying to see or meet, got ready and headed out again to see Admiral Twin and then Hanson. Laura had been successful in finding a laundry cart and stocking enough towels for us—undying gratitude here! Also, a Walgreens, cuz that little itty bitty hotel bottle of shampoo wouldn’t have been enough for one of Ella’s piggy tails, let alone all six of us hot, sweaty people!

Admiral Twin—what a great band they are! I miss them sometimes. Of course, I didn’t get to pay too much attention because I had to get in the wristband line. Wow. That was a thing of beauty—stretching across the entire parking lot. There’s nothing like Hanson Fans on Parade. Some of us had wings, some had stiletto heels, some were barefoot. There were Barbie girls, Goth girls, hippies, old girls, young girls, Ike Girls, Taylor Girls, and even a few Zac Girls. Hanson fans are so varied! Naturally, Camp Hanson had ONE person doing the list at first. I think it was Leigh. Wow, I wonder if she knew what she signed on for? The answer would be yes—and of course, any of us would do it in a heartbeat. However, that said—poor person doing the whole thing by themselves! Lucky for her, soon, someone said, “Hey, this could take all night long! Let’s get a couple more people out here to speed things along! Don’t want anyone still here when the documentary ends!” And so, the line became two, one for A-L, one for M-Z. I got mine and went to the merchandise table to see the Mayfest shirts—didn’t buy one. I liked them, but I look like a dork in white t-shirts, so I passed. Of course, now, I want one. Oh well…

The Show—the parking lot filled up. Of course, up front were the Hanson Heads, and then the back and the fringes were people there for Mayfest with folding chairs and stuff. Hehe…as if you could see Hanson while sitting in a chair, haha!!! I’m wondering how many left there with a little more respect for their hometown boys? Lots’ I’d bet. I know the guy beside us kept saying, “Man, they gotta do MMMBop!” He was just kidding around, being a smartass as so many males are wont to do with anything Hanson-ish. But, then, they did the song, and he started dancing with his girlfriend and marveling, “Oh man, they’re actually good!” Duh. There’s the “mmmbop effect” again. I love it when the realization finally hits them. What do they think we like about Hanson? I mean, do they actually think that we travel, and wait on sidewalks and camp out because the guys are cute or something? Fuck that, I can find cute at the mall. And frankly, they passed up cute years ago. Dang, here I am, way into the “show” part of this, and I haven’t mentioned anything about the show. How do I do that? It’s a curse. So, the show—it was grand, as always. I think it was like, 18 songs—pretty heavy on the covers—“Love Me” was a dedication from Taylor to Penelope, who after only one month already knows it’s going to be hard to watch her grow up. Dads are just like that about their daughters—I’m sure many of you are victims of OverProtectiveDad syndrome. You know what it is? They actually KNOW what boys/men have on their minds all the time. Unlike Moms who still don’t really understand it. They did “In a Little While” just for Stephanie. They must have heard she got that cool new camera phone.

The encore was killer. They’d practiced “Livin’ on Tulsa Time” during the soundcheck. Of course, I laughed because I kept thinking it was a Garth Brooks song, and Stephanie hates country music with a passion. We all know though, that he just sang it now and then—maybe on HBO? Anyway—I kept thinking they’d open with that to get the hometown crowd into it. But, they were saving it for the big bang at the end. Leon Russell (legendary, for you young’uns) and Steve Ripley (of Tractors fame) came out and they all jammed on that song. Oh man, the looks on those guys faces, playing with those amazing performers was just beautiful! It was a killer ending to the show.

Now we were off to the church. Um…Guts Church had intestines in the shape of a “G” on the sign. Very interesting. Obviously trying to appeal to the Extreme Church crowd. Which is cool. Go for it. We were in another line and it snaked around the side of the building. A guy came out and told us we’d be let in when the band got there. Egads, the crowd grumbled, knowing what that could mean. We had to use the bathroom, and they were telling us we couldn’t until Hanson got there. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s all I have to say about that. I think they must have relented though. Eventually, we got in and were led into the “sanctuary”. It was a large room with metal walls and three large screens. A stage was at the front of the room as well. Everyone crowded in front of the middle one until some kind person told us they’d be using all three screens. So, we got good seats on the far right. Then went to the bathroom line. There were probably 100 girls to every 1 guy there—but they WERE NOT going to be letting girls in the men’s room. It’s not proper, it just isn’t done. So, we waited next to the chirping crickets of the men’s room, waiting for that elusive opening on the girl side. Luckily, Hanson was late as usual, so we didn’t miss anything. Once we got back in our seats, we started pointing out famous hanson.netters to each other. Hmmm…I wonder if anyone was pointing me out to their friends. “Hey, there’s thequiet1, we always ignore her…”

The lights dimmed a little, AshG took the stage and then Hanson did. They’d gotten cleaned up and looked very nice up there. Isaac was so hoarse, I bet he couldn’t talk the next day. Don’t worry Australian girls, I’m sure he’s recovered by now. They were sweet and funny and very excited. They explained that we probably would have a few issues with the dialogue and Ash said it’d be a little like listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher talk—which prompted all three of our geeky boys to do the “wa wa wa wa waaa”s into their microphones. And, he was right.

A great deal of the documentary is told through phone calls to the guys by the villainous record label people, and dang…subtitles are a MUST. I won’t give away anything more. I know you all want to see it. It’s sad and funny and sweet and a little manipulative. But, why do the film if it’s not to put your side out there? There were moments when the crowd cheered and some when we laughed hard. I cried at the end (I knew I would). I was one of the 150 “lucky” ones to get a survey to fill out. Taylor joked that it had to be the first time that people felt honored to get to fill out a survey—hehe… Really, I could have written tomes (obviously) but at 3 in the morning, and still hyped up, it was hard to decide what to write down. I did my best, and “signed” it with my email address in case I’d said anything of interest ( I don’t think I did, because it seems most of us had the same issues). We went back to the hotel, and were snoozing by 5 am.

And so my children, that was Mayfest. We went home the next day and had a little mini-adventure doing so. I got in my bed Sunday morning around 4 am. And I lived to tell about it! So endeth another Hanson Adventure…