A Note on Negative Feedback

I've seen a lot of anger from fans lately about bad reviews, incorrect articles in the media, and unfounded insults in the comments sections.

Here's an analogy about why I don't let bad publicity and negative feedback about my favorite band bother me so much:

We were in New Haven, CT, some time in the early afternoon during the Musical Ride tour. My friends and I were sitting on the sidewalk with 50 or so other people, all waiting in line for the show later that night. We got plenty of the usual "What are you guys in line for?" "Hanson? Like MMMBop Hanson?" "Who?" "Is it sold out?" etc. We answered quickly, budged people along, and didn't bother arguing with every single person that gave us weird looks, because who wants to spend all of their free time arguing with the kind of people that give you weird looks anyway? Then all of a sudden, this girl in a banana suit walks up. True story. We're minding our own business, it's the middle of the day and weeks away from Halloween, and this girl wanders up all alone, completely wasted, wearing a giant banana. (It was the Yale campus. I don't know if that explains anything in this situation). And do you know what she says?

"OH MY GOD! Are you guys seriously sitting out here for Hanson?" She added a maniacal laugh and sounded as condescending as one possibly can while drunk in a banana suit.

So my friends and I looked at each other, and I said what I know we were all thinking:

"OH MY GOD! Are you seriously wearing a giant banana?"

/end scene.

There will always be the hecklers wanting to know what on God's green earth would make someone sit on a sidewalk for hours and wait for a band whose most negative attribute they can come up with is the fact that they were teenagers 15 years ago. And lately, there's been an influx of cookie-cutter poorly researched articles from various media outlets, labeling Hanson as "one-hit-wonders" and citing the "comeback" we inevitably read about with every new album release. They use apostrophe's to pluralize words (see what I did there?), they spell names wrong, and sometimes they just make crap up because it's easier than doing any research. And the reader comments? I can't even begin to tackle the level of crazy inaccurate insults that happen there. Plenty are just trolling for a reaction anyway.

There are a few ways to respond. You can read every single one of them and get really riled up and head a small online lynch mob to berate them with equally bad insults. You can go all Rodney Dangerfield and feel victimized and misunderstood and like nobody gives your favorite band the respect they deserve.

Or you can remember that you need only take the opinion of a drunken banana so seriously.


*Disclaimer- I'm talking specifically about the type of insult/article that is factually incorrect or without background research. If you've listened to the newer music and dislike it for reasons other than hair length/color, age, and what you thought in the 6th grade, I can totally respect that opinion.

Hanson Day 2013

I'm going to skip the usual sentimental opening I give to these Hanson Day blogs--you can read that in any other entry about Hanson Day in the archive here. My first show will always be the Tulsa MOE in 2007, so by default I'm always going to be a sentimental sap about going back every year right around that anniversary. I'll spare you the mushiness surrounding what was anniversary #6, Tulsa trip #7, and birthday #??

The Dinner

I know you're not reading this for food commentary, but you're going to get it anyway. The dinner at Caz's Chowhouse was great. Though I've been aware that chicken and waffles is an actual thing for over a year now, I had never tried it before. It's a somewhat regional thing (though I've definitely seen it offered in both Tennessee and Oklahoma, so it can't be THAT regional), and we don't have it here. I finally opted to try it at Caz's and was pleasantly surprised, mostly because it was the best waffle I've ever tasted. Good food aside, it was fun getting to meet and catch up with everyone. Also, Isaac wagged his finger at my cheesecake. IDK. It wasn't doing anything wrong.

The Documentary

Next was the screening for the new documentary, Re: Made in America. I'm not a fan of spoilers, so I'll refrain from going into too much detail on this as well as the new music. If I had to choose one word to describe it, I would use "genuine." This documentary addresses some of the issues that have been rumored among fans regarding tensions in the band. I will say it's not quite as universal as Strong Enough to Break in that I don't think just any music fan could pick it up and fully appreciate the struggle/journey, but that may be a special treat for more hardcore fans that are already familiar with the band's dynamic. It was an interesting inside look at the recording process for a band that has toughed it out for 20 years and included a few good laughs along the way. If you don't purchase a package, I would encourage you to still sit down and watch it with a friend some time.

The Walk

I was a little nervous for the walk since it was the first hosted by Hanson in about three years. It was freezing and had just finished raining, so for the first time after twenty or so walks, I kept my shoes on. Maybe I'll use it as an opportunity to appreciate being a spoiled middle-class American with the option to wear shoes and socks when and wherever I want, and to recognize how awful it must be to not have that option. Despite the weather, the turnout was good, and many still walked with bare feet.

The Listening Party

Good stuff. Buy the album June 18th. You won't regret it. I'll post a full review of the album on the release date :-)

Sidenote: Hanson is not even kidding around about leaking new music and filesharing. There were multiple signs saying anyone caught recording in the listening party or the show would be immediately banned for life from any future Hanson shows. Just say no, guys.

The Show (session two)

I have to admit I was wary about the setlist. I feared that they would play the new album in its entirety and be done. And as amazing as that would be and as spoiled as it sounds, I really didn't want to travel 1,100+ miles one way just to hear something I could hear nine times on tour much closer to my house. They didn't disappoint, and I have to say this might have been my favorite member event to date. They began by playing a few new songs from Anthem, but then surprised us all by announcing that we were going to help them record the new fan club EP. We stomped and clapped and provided "oohs" on cue, and for the second time in my life, I enjoyed stomping in heels at the top of a set of bleachers in Cain's. (I also didn't fall and break my neck, which is an added bonus.) I don't get too many super flustered OMG IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING type moments, but seeing Zac and Taylor drum in unison, mirrored on a set of left and right-handed drum kits was a good enough catalyst for that reaction in us all. I'm almost as excited for the new EP as I am for the new album.

I was surprised and not surprised when the Q & A session opened up with the question I had submitted. When those things start, you always envision a Hanson reading off your name, right? Like you're willing it to happen and mentally preparing yourself for if it does. And then they do or they don't, but this time the scenario that played out on stage was the same one that preceded it in my head. And for what it's worth, it was also edited a bit from my original version.

What Zac read: "Do you plan to continue the walks on the next tour?"

What I wrote: "Do you plan to continue the walks at every tour stop on the next tour?"

I've heard them say a few times now that they plan to continue the walks, but the explanation has always been a little vague. I was curious if they plan to continue them at every show in the same fashion as The Walk Tour, or if they're going to be changed or updated in some way, like how they're donating $1 from ticket sales this time. I should have elaborated when I wrote my question, but I'm happy with a "yes" either way!

The Rest 

Pun intended, of course, because there was no rest during the rest of the trip. "The rest" can be summed up in two parts: riding in the car, and photobombing. My trip to Tulsa was a 20 hour drive, split 8 hours one day and 12 the next. The trip home was a straight 23.5 hour drive, with at least one of those extra hours courtesy of a dead car battery at midnight in nowhere, SC. I sincerely hope to never see two sunrises on the same car trip again without sleep in between. That being said, it won't stop me from doing it again next year.

The rest, in picture form:


          
                     
         

                                 

                                  

Taylor Hanson Turns 30!!!!! Feel Old?

There are two kinds of people in the world:  People that age normally, and child stars. For example, Taylor Hanson was 14 years old in 1997. Let’s say A.J. (that’s Average Joe) was also 14 in 1997. Check out this table charting their ages in surrounding years:

              A.J.      Taylor
1993    10            10

1995    12            12
1997    14            14
1999    16            14

2001    18            14

2003    20            14
2005    22            14
2007    24            14
2009    26            14
2011    28            14
  2013    30           30?!

Note that both followed normal aging patterns until 1997 when fame froze Taylor at 14, while A.J. continued to age at a normal rate. This allows A.J. and others in his peer group to advance into adulthood leaving Taylor with the "kid" label for years to come.

Ironically, the song that shot Taylor and his brothers to fame in 1997 was about the passage of time.  The lyrics touch on the fleeting nature of life and the moments that pass us by so quickly ("you turn your back and they're gone so fast"). The title word "MMMBop" itself, coined by the young brothers, means "a short moment in time." Little did Taylor know that a catchy little song about time would have the power to freeze him in adolescence indefinitely.

Given the facts, it's understandable that news of Taylor's 30th birthday has shocked pop culture enthusiasts everywhere today.  A quick Google search of "Taylor Hanson turns 30" will yield a multitude of articles, all beginning with the variation of a single sentence:  "Are you ready to feel old?" There's nothing scarier than waking up to find that someone you knew to be a young teen has gone and aged 16 years in a single day. If that can happen, what next?

If you're still skeptical, you can check these sources for proof:

OK! Magazine
(in which you can vote for which is hotter: 90's Taylor or Taylor Today. Um, creepy?)
Pop Dust
(in which the female author seems to have grasped his age, but not his gender)
Pop Goes the Arts
(in which four!!!! exclamation points were necessary)


Happy 30th Taylor! May this be the year that people finally let you grow up.

How to Tell Your Loved One That You're Going to Jamaica...Again.

There! That was easy.

Back to the Island 2013

There's nothing quite like running into the ocean during "Thinking of You" or twirling in a dress in the sand during "Penny and Me" as you actually gaze at starry skies. The whole trip was just a completely different experience from the usual Hanson show, and I'm glad I went. The fans all seemed more calm and laid back than at a tour show, myself included. Everyone I talked to was super nice, and there's something oddly relaxing about not having access to a cell phone and having to meet at a set time and place instead.

The first show was my favorite, probably because I was just so excited to finally be there dancing on the beach, and there were a lot of high-energy songs in that set. The acoustic show felt like the exact opposite of the first day; it was mostly made up of slower songs and ballads. There's this stereotype that Isaac rambles a lot if you let him talk. Give him alcohol and a stage to himself and it's no longer something people just joke about. I'm pretty sure his introduction to "More Than Anything" was longer than the actual song, and when he finally started playing, he stopped about 10 seconds in and said something to the effect of "Guys, I just love the sound of the waves behind me as I play!" like a child with ADD pointing at a flashing road sign. It was kind of adorable.

After "Wish That I Was There" they played "Wish That I was There," or at least Isaac did. I never realized how similar it sounds to the intro of Deeper until Isaac began singing the WTIWT chorus again instead of the first verse of Deeper. We all had a good laugh and Taylor stepped in to remind him of the lyrics...or maybe to threaten him. Who knows.

I absolutely LOVED "You Can't Stop Us Now" on the final night. From the beginning, it had a bit of a Queen feel to it, with a beat similar to "We Will Rock You" (nevermind the title similarity to "Don't Stop Me Now"). It's pure rock and Zac sings lead. I can't wait to hear it again when the new album comes out.  Overall the shows were good, but I have to say my biggest complaint of the trip is that they repeated some songs on multiple nights. It's part of following a tour; you go to different cities and see shows with different audiences, and you're going to hear a lot of the same songs multiple times. It's expected and still fun. But when you know the audience is going to be identical three nights in a row, I didn't expect (or want) any repeats.

I was in the group with Green Passes so I saw Zac's first Tie Dye session, aka the guinea pig trial that failed and had to be changed the next day. There was a small stage in the grassy area where we were all sitting, and we all assumed he would be on the stage. Instead, he walked up, stopped about two feet in front of where I was sitting, announced "I'm Tie Dying right here!" and sat cross-legged in the grass. Before I knew it, there was a swarm around us on all sides. I'm sure Zac intended to mingle and go around to different groups of people, but we were all locked into that space as soon as he sat down and people mobbed. It was uncomfortably close for everyone and I'm sure people further back couldn't hear or see. I hear the following day things were more relaxed and he did speak from the stage and walk around to different groups instead. The instructor grabbed my shirt out of my lap for the demonstration, so I just sat back and watched.

The next day was Taylor's cooking and Isaac's drink mixing. The escovitch fish Taylor cooked was delicious.

I'm not even sure how to describe the drink mixing session. It started with us doing the YMCA and we got to see Isaac attempt the cha cha slide, soulja boy, and something the staff called "smooth & deadly." At one point he took a shot of vodka straight from the bottle and he named his own personal concoction at the end the "Let's Get it On...or at least try."

The trip home deserves a post to itself, but suffice it to say our bus broke down like five times and they had to send an extra bus to come pick us up about a mile from the Montego Bay airport. Never a dull moment.

I think Andrew McMahon can provide a better ending to this than I can, so I'll let him:

But if you left it up to me,
Every day would be a holiday from real.
We'd waste our weeks beneath the sun;
We'd fry our brains and say it's so much fun out here!
But when it's all over,
I'll come back for another year.

The "Biggest Fan"(tasy)

If you spend enough time around music fans—or more specifically, music fans meeting their idols—you get used to hearing certain comments. Some are flattering, some mean well but come out wrong, and some are so mortifying you have to wonder what made the person actually say it out loud.

“The show was great!”

“I love you!”

“I’ve had the biggest crush on you since I was 12!”

“I can’t believe people used to think you were the ugly one!”

And then there’s the old fallback:

“OMG, I’m your biggest fan!”

The funny thing is I’ve probably witnessed at least a dozen people claim to be the biggest fan, and it’s not a title than can be worn by 12 people at once. Honestly, I don’t think it’s a title anyone can ever hold. Maybe it’s silly, but I feel a little insulted every time I hear it.

It’s like trying to say you’re the biggest fan of chocolate. Based on what? Should we tally up all the chocolate bars you’ve eaten in your lifetime, have you write a 1,000 word essay on the beneficial effects of chocolate, put you and another chocolate lover in a cage with one Hershey bar and see what happens? What would it matter anyway?

It just strikes me as narrow-minded and silly to believe that you could ever definitively know that you care about something more than every other person on the planet. Even if we could somehow create a standard of measurement that factors in the number of years you’ve been a fan, the number of shows you’ve seen, the amount of merchandise you’ve purchased, and the number of times you've listened to an album, nobody would ever agree. You’ve got people that can afford to do and buy more, people that can’t, and people that won’t. You can be a huge fan and see a hundred shows because you can afford the money and the time off, and you can be a huge fan and never see Hanson live because you live in a different country or have a family to support. At the end of the day, you'll only ever know how far people were willing and able to go, but not how much they care about something.

Numbers and statistics are great for scientific research, but they can never measure how you really feel about something. Outside of those numeric pain scales in hospitals, it's just not normal to attach an exact value or a specific comparison to a feeling. Nobody goes around saying "I love you seven!" or "I love you slightly less than I love Sally, but more than Joe loves you!"

Bottom line: The way every other person in the world feels about a song or a band shouldn't change the way you feel about it, and that's all that matters.

Epcot Food & Wine Festival 2012

Sometimes life feels a little more like "If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a flock of sheep." Which explains how I wound up renting a car, driving to Orlando, and then flying one way to California and back home again.

All complicated details aside, I ended up at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival to see Hanson for the 3rd year in a row, and I'm really running out of things to say about it. Once you've done it in a banana suit, you've pretty much got all of your bases covered.

We got park hopper passes and spent both days running around taking in as much as possible before the shows. We were lucky enough to get into a special preview of Fantasyland which was both unexpected and awesome.

I met Gaston there.



Despite his stance against books in the movie, he is at least literate based on the fact that he read my shirt out loud. When I told him that Hanson is my favorite band, he made an annoyed face and informed me that HE should be my favorite band and then had nothing more to do with me. Typical Gaston behavior, I suppose.

The Hanson shows were great as always, and it was fun getting to sing happy birthday to Zac at the end of the last show on the 22nd. My favorite part was definitely "In the City" as the final song the 2nd day. It's just the best way to end a show. Pictures will probably do more than any repetitive description I could give.







And then I flew across the country and hit the other Disney where we went to Mickey's Halloween Party and came home with 8.6 lbs of candy each, because who doesn't want to say they hit all of the Disney parks in the country in one week?

How To Tell Your Loved One That You're Going to Jamaica

1. Find a partner in crime and plot. You’ll need a roommate to split the costs, and it needs to be someone on the same page as you. This should be someone you can tolerate through not only four nights in a hotel room, but also ten months of anticipation and rationalization. Tell no one.

2. Pay the deposit and make it official. Give yourselves a virtual pat on the back for snagging the cheap[est] room, and ignore the relative nature of “cheap” in this situation.   

(i.e. cheap:Hanson::soon:Hanson)

3.  Now that it’s official, you can show moderate levels of excitement in corners of the internet that your friends/family/significant other don’t frequent. It’s not time to publicize your impulse vacation--yet.

4.  Continue to make payments on the trip. You can pay it off without asking for help, so do it, and do it quietly.

5. Enter a contest to have an extra night added to your trip free of charge.

6. Five months after booking, when you’ve paid everything off and worked hard all summer to replenish what you’ve used on your dream getaway, write a blog post. Speak liberally and post it somewhere where it will cross paths with your loved one(s). If you’re feeling bold, tag them in it. Now is your moment. (Hi, mom, dad! I love you :)

7. Allow two to three minutes for steps 1-6 to sink in. This may include intense moments of hair pulling, yelling, silence, sighing, and/or eerie laughter depending on the person and your individual situation. This will pass. (Note: Results may vary. Do not administer while your loved one is operating heavy machinery.)

8. Remind your loved one that while this may seem serious now, it has actually been true for months. In the meantime, the world has not imploded. You have not been selling anything dangerous or illegal for extra money (though you briefly entertained the idea of selling your rare pre-fame copy of “MMMBop”). You are not in debt and have not been surviving on ramen noodles to make up for the dent in your bank account. If necessary, use the phrase “it will be okay,” and mean it.

9. Include a shameless plug for votes for that free night somewhere in your post. If you’re coming clean, you might as well lay it all out. Click Here to help me out! You can vote every day if you're feeling generous.

10. If steps 5-7 do not succeed, proceed to Plan B.

Plan B:

Send a post card.


(Contest Update: The contest is over. I was chosen as the runner-up, which is odd since there was only supposed to be one winner. As Rachel put it, only I could win 2nd place in a contest that didn't even have a 2nd place. I'm not sure if this makes me extremely lucky or extremely unlucky, but thanks everyone that voted!  I won two DVDs from 5 of 5 and gave them away to friends in Jamaica since I already have the full set.)

Confessions, pt. 2

At the risk of sounding like Usher, this is part 2 of my confession post. Click here if you missed part 1.

Now that that's out of the way, I can tell you that I went to see One Direction in concert last month. I actually got in my car and drove 3 hours to see a band that was not Hanson and stood in a line where I didn't recognize a single face. It was weird.

The weirdest part of all was the feeling that I was looking at some kind of warped version of what 1997 must have been like for Hanson and their fans. There were home-made shirts and posters everywhere. SUVs and soccer mom vans had "One Direction" and a variety of inside jokes scribbled all over the windows in girly scripts (the "Puff Broccoli," "red jelly beans," and "MOE" of 2012). I walked around the block to find the main entrance, found a group of several hundred "Directioners" in puffy paint shirts, and I waited. Three minutes, I waited, until I realized the building looked a bit different than the part I saw when I parked and something felt off. I got up and went to investigate the front of the mob and was horrified at what I found. The sign on the side of the building said "Aloft."

I hadn't found the end of the line; I was at the band's hotel. I had to laugh at myself before high-tailing it back to the venue. I spend five years trying not to be that creeper Hanson fan that invades the band's privacy, and it takes one show to accidentally wind up at One Direction's hotel.

Better yet, the mother next to me at the show bragged about how she snuck her 11-year-old daughter right onto the boys' hotel floor before finally being told off by security for being a terrible mother by teaching her daughter that it was okay to invade someone's privacy. "I should have told him, those boys signed up for that lifestyle when they chose to become famous. I'm not teaching my daughter to invade their privacy--I'm teaching her to follow her dreams!" I smiled and nodded, because sometimes you just have to.

I watched 20,000 girls scream and throw stuff on stage and sing at the top of their lungs, and it was weird and foreign and not, all at the same time. All this and I haven't said a single word about One Direction and their music or their performance, and I have to wonder why I really went and what my true fascination is with this band. Great vocals? Catchy pop songs? Add that to the list of things I can't answer. Do I really have to, though, as long as I enjoy it?

And on the subject of things I can't explain, I leave you with this:

Confessions, pt. 1

I have a confession to make: I like One Direction.

Maybe that sounds silly coming from the girl that shamelessly follows Hanson around, but the key word here is shamelessly. Hanson has never been a guilty pleasure for me at all. I’m quite proud of their music, and telling people I’m a Hanson fan has always felt more like a privilege than a confession. I think that’s why I’m fighting myself so hard on liking One Direction. They embody every stereotype that people like to cast onto Hanson—a teenage boy band that doesn’t write their own music or play instruments. I’ve spent so long explaining that those things are NOT Hanson that it just feels wrong to like a band that actually fits that description. There are enough people in the world that don’t take me seriously because my favorite band is Hanson. Add another band with another stigma to the mix and it’s like verifying what people already think:

Holly has crappy taste in music.

And then my inner English teacher looks at the word “taste” and thinks about its synonyms, like “preference,” “favor,” “choice,” etc. What they all have in common is that by definition, they’re completely subjective, entirely up to the user. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that jazz. Basically, it’s my “taste” and darn it, nobody else is going to tell me what to feed it.


Click here for part 2, in which I go to a 1D show alone.