Ah, The Fair! A perfect place to pay money just to go spend lots more money and eat lots and lots of usually fried food on a stick. What a time!
It’s also a great place to hear a lot of music.
The first performance that I will mention is a Rock Band/ artist Colin BraceWell at the MPR booth. They mostly played originals ( except for one mellow, but well done cover of Little Red Corvette by Prince) and their music and sound reminded me of some of the music from the late 90’s and early 2000’s that was playing on the radio at the time.
Two things impressed me about their performance. First of all, The instrumentalist did not stick to just one dedicated instrument. The musicians switched it around for a few tunes. At one point, I believe the trumpet player was playing the bass. On a side note, I really enjoyed listening to the counter melodies that their trumpet player was playing.Perhaps I have not seen enough live bands, but from what I can tell, this is not always the case.
Secondly, a string on the lead singer’s Electric guitar broke mid-set and instead of letting it ruin the performance, they seamlessly transitioned to using the acoustic by connecting it to a pedal to give it an electric feel. Although you could tell this was not planned, the band concluded the remainder of their set seemingly unphased.
The Second performance I will talk about is by the Bands at the daily parade that happens at The Fair. This parade is massive and takes at least 45 minutes to complete. Several community and high school bands from around the state arrive just to perform in this spectical which has them dodging impatient people who look for a gap to cross the street to cow piles in 90 degree heat. I got to hear a variety of music from 1960’s-70’s marching band renditions of classic rock and folk, to steel drums and traditional DCI style drum lines.
Thirdly our day concluded upon a happenstance performance of the HMS Pinnafore by The Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company. We did not intend to see this group. They just happened to be performing by the History building and I recognized the music from The Simpsons, so I got excited and made my S.O. watch with me.
This group did a fantastic job with the entire opera, but the hightlight was during a duet piece where this oblivious couple walked right through the stage while a duet was occurring.
The DEATH GLARE from the perofmers was Spectacular and I still say that that coupole DESERVED to be made part of the performance!
Overall, I had a great time at the Great Missesota Get together ( aka the great minnesota Eat together) and got to hear a lot of music too!
If you were there at anytime during the two weeks, , please leave a comment and tell me what your favorite performance was that you saw.