Here’s some advice if you want to bring a kid to a not-so-kid-friendly event. Give the kid something to do.
I wasn’t going to miss one of my man-crush artists – Paul Thorn – the second of four acts playing a sultry Saturday at the Iroquois Amphitheatre. But I was responsible for 12-year-old Luke, who has not yet developed an affinity for music and whose idea of a fun Saturday afternoon with Dad would definitely not have been hanging with a bunch of old folks sitting in the sun.
So I gave Luke a camera and an assignment – go take some pictures I can use for this article I’m writing. Now he’s a junior paparazzi, especially after having captured several shots of the star of the show waiting in line and ordering a hot dog, just like a regular dude. Luke wouldn’t get too close, but the idea of taking undetected candid shots of a semi-celebrity seemed to appeal to him.
The bad news about this event, called Festus, was that organizers didn’t seem to have things planned very well. We arrived at the advertised start time, 4:30, to see opening act Chris Knight. But Knight wasn’t playing when we got our wristbands at the door (applied by a rough-looking dude with lit cigarette in mouth, inches from our faces). In fact, the only folks on stage seemed to be roadies plugging and un-plugging wires.
Finally, Thorn himself walked on-stage about 5, explaining he might be doing a sound check soon. It had the feel of getting to a baseball game in time to catch batting practice. Luke followed Thorn around while WFPK’s Michael Young apologized to the milling crowd at about 5:10 that the kinks were being worked on – the show would start within 30 minutes.
We took seats dead center about 20 rows back in this under-rated and beautiful venue. Proof that Louisville is a small town – to my left sat Martha, with whom I shared classes at WKU nearly 30 years ago – who was with friends and a fellow Paul Thorn worshiper. She explained that Knight, the first act, also went to school with us in Bowling Green.
Behind me was Mike, a source for several stories I wrote at Business First a dozen years ago. Small world.
Thorn is back on stage, joking that he doesn’t like doing songs for free but that he was going to do one for a sound check. About 6, Knight started strumming his guitar and, after a few false starts, his one-hour set was underway. I get a second beer, and Luke gives high praise to the Italian Ice.
It happens that Thorn’s new recording, Pimps and Preachers, is officially released the following week. We bought a copy in the upper concourse from a nice lady who assures us Paul will be back to sign them later. At 7:15, the band walks on stage, opening with a story that ends this way: “If you’re with a woman who is not treating you good, you are stupid.” It sets up a tune from his new record “Weeds in My Roses.”
Thorn, who came to my attention four years ago when he was a performer on a Delbert McClinton cruise, is at heart an extraordinary storyteller who talks of regular folks and how they deal with life, usually involving faith, bad behavior and drinking. He really was raised, he says, by a preacher (his father) and a pimp (his uncle).
He launches into a story about choosing what to get at Wendy’s. Trying to eat right, he plans to get a chicken sandwich and salad, only to panic and go for the burger and fries when it comes time to order. It’s his lead-in to a hit – “Everybody looks good at the starting line.”
Thorn dedicates a song to a guy he met his last time in Louisville, Bull Pain, he calls him. Says he got too drunk for that show, and Pain wrote him to say he was disappointed. Thorn looks for the guy in the audience, but he’s not here.
I see Luke’s still working hard, trying both sides of the stage, seeking the best shot. He looks a little jealous when he sees a guy with a long lens. Thorn introduces the band, tells a story about letting a cockroach live when it walked across his script during a show.
Some of the audience members break into various dances, and I tell Luke to get some crowd shots. He’s off and running, but finally comes back and sits down beside me. We’ve been here nearly four hours, when Thorn’s band performs an upbeat “Rise Up” and walks off the stage.
With the crowd cheering, he and the band come back on for an encore about a minute later. Then something happened I had never seen at any concert. Somebody tells Thorn he can’t play another one. Just when we were geared up for the Mission Temple Fireworks Stand encore. Thorn throws his hands in the air, disgusted, and heads up to the concourse to fulfill his autograph session commitment.
Luke and I go up to see a line stretching the length of the venue, 50 people deep. So Luke takes the camera to the front of the line and snaps one more.
You can’t keep a 12-year-old content beyond the four-hour mark, so we missed the main acts – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit and Cross Canadian Ragweed. But we’d both had enough.
Back home, I am sorting through the hundred or so photos Luke took – there’s plenty of the show, of some people dancing, plenty of different angles. So I asked him what he thought, and Luke says that it’s a good thing he had something fun to do, because it would have been a long day without the fun photo assignment.
“So you had a good time?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was fun.”
Story by Rick Redding
Photos by Luke
Tags: Community, Events, Family, Festivals, Fun, Kids, Louisville, Music, Musician, People
