One Hot Fun Day at the 2010 Wolfdance

I still remember attending the first Wolfdance concert sponsored by 99.5 The Wolf Radio back in 2001 in Fort Worth at Sundance Square. I was (and still am) a big Robert Earl Keen fan who was headlining the show that year, so we decided to drive down and spend the day listening to a great lineup of entertainment including Pat Green, Jack Ingram, Cory Morrow, Charlie Robison and a host of others leading up to Robert Earl and his band late that night. The concert was held on the two Sundance Square parking lots to the south of Billy Miners and 8.0's. with stages at opposite ends of the lots. That way, as soon as the band on one stage finished its set, the next band could start their set and the music was non-stop from start to finish. Not a bad setup, however, the entire surface of the event was asphalt, there was no place to sit nor were chairs allowed, and the only place to escape the sun consisted of a few small trees along the street that ran between the two lots. Needless to say, it was a hot muggy day with temps in the mid 90's made even hotter with the heat radiating up off the asphalt. As much as I looked forward to the lineup, I couldn't honestly say we had a great time (at least until the sun went down). I would rank it up there with the fun one might have attending a football game when the temperatures are in the low 20's with a good north wind blowing. That said, when we saw that they were having Wolfdance again in 2002 with Robert Earl returning to headline, we opted to spend our Memorial Day Weekend at our lake cabin and the cool waters of Lake Nocona, and have continued doing that for the past seven years.

This year, however, we gave in and decided to make another trek to Wolfdance. My daughter, Michelle, and our son-in-law, Rob, have suddenly become big Texas music fans as have their teenage daughters who have become particularly enamored with Johnny Cooper, and when they saw that Johnny was playing at Wolfdance, which is now held at the Stockyards, they decided they would attend and finally convinced Becky and I that we should go with them. Upon arriving at the venue, I could see potentially, some of the same problems we encountered the first year we went. They had two stages sitting at opposite ends of a long asphalt parking lot adjacent to Stockyards Station with a forecast of temps in the mid 90's. This year, however, there were some fairly large live oak trees sitting along the entire length of the fence on the east side of the lot that one could get under to get out of the sun, and they also had a covered area on the west side with fans that sprayed water mist for those that wanted to cool off, and they had a high pressure water hose outdoors about midway between the stages to spray water on those that wanted to cool down and didn't mind getting wet. In addition, for an extra $10, for those 21 and older, you could go into the Red Dirt Music pavilion along the west side of the venue. It had misting fans plus tables and chairs plus a bar that sold a 16 oz beer for $5 instead of the $6 they were charging outside. In the pavilion, they also had several of the artists play acoustic sets throughout the day before or after they played their sets on the two main stages. Since the pavilion wasn't completely closed in, it was hard to hear the acoustic shows at times with the sounds of the music coming from the main stages at the same time they were trying to play, but it gave people a chance to stand within a foot or two of the stage to see some of their favorite performers close up and to interact with them. During the time we were in the pavilion, we saw Steve Helms, Johnny Cooper, Charla Corn, Cory Morrow and Pat Green sing three or four songs apiece and chat with Justin Frazell of 95.9 The Ranch, who hosted the pavilion shows.





















For the granddaughters and most of the rest of my family, the highlight of the day was getting to see Johnny Cooper who played the 4 PM show on the Ziegenbock Stage. The oldest granddaughter, Cameron, got two of his guitar picks while standing on the front row at the stage, and later she and her sister, Abby as well as Michelle got their pictures taken with Johnny at his merchandise booth.









I enjoyed his show myself, but also enjoyed getting to see Cory Morrow perform for the first time since I saw him play at the first Wolfdance back in 2001.



Other good sets were played by Bart Crow, Josh Abbott, Jason Boland and Brandon Rhyder.







Pat Green played the 9 PM show. I started following Pat back in 1996 before he had the following he does today after seeing him open for Robert Earl Keen at Wolf Pen Ampitheater in College Station and went to many of his shows back when less than 100 people might show up until the fall of '98. Shortly after that, the crowds got too big and unruly for my liking, and I haven't been to any of his live shows since other than seeing him play a few songs at Texas Motor Speedway before a NASCAR race three years ago, so I did look forward to seeing him, and he didn't disappoint. He did several of his new songs, but did intertwine them with several of his old songs from back when I was going to his shows over 10 years ago.


It became apparent that many of the concert goers had come primarily to see Pat as there seemed to be a large exodus from the concert grounds after his set ended despite the fact that Stoney Larue was slated to play after Pat at 10:15 PM., or maybe they were just worn out from a long day in the hot sun like us, since we decided to skip Stoney's show ourselves and head home. Overall, we had a pretty good time, but still not sure if I'll go back again next year, though I do think they made some improvements in providing people a way to stay somewhat cooler than that first show nine years ago.