Hanson Comes Alive
By Jarrod Gollihare
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The wait is finally over. For the mighty throngs of Hanson fans scattered
across North America who’ve been wandering about in the Wilderness of
Discontent, crying aloud "Wherefore art thou Blessed Three? When shalt thou
grace our presence with thine own?" the answer to their collective longing has
finally come into view.

And it all starts right back at ground zero where the Hanson explosion began –
the boys’ home town of Tulsa.

That’s right. Hanson’s concert tour plans have at long last been announced,
ending months of endless fan speculation and queries. During the recent press
melee that inevitably follows the Grammy Awards, it was revealed that the world
famous trio will begin a three month-jaunt across the U.S. and Canada beginning
with a proposed April 14 kick-off concert here in Tulsa at the Convention
Center.

"We’d planned on touring much earlier," confesses guitarist/vocalist Ike
Hanson. "But because of scheduling we weren’t able to get out as soon as we had
hoped."

"One of the downsides of getting popular," says keyboardist/vocalist Taylor
Hanson, "is that you end up doing a lot more television and radio interviews
than actually playing concerts. It changes the whole point of being a
band…which is to get out there and entertain people. Doing the tour is high on
our priority list right now."

"Yeah, we’re definitely looking forward to touring," Ike continues. "It’s been
a while since we’ve consistently done performances, so to get back out there
and do a show every other night will be a very cool experience again for us.
Because, you know, that’s what it’s all about."

He really means it, too. Ike, Taylor, and their younger brother Zac Hanson
(drums and vocals), simply love playing live. It is one of the central reasons
they got into the rock’n’roll biz in the first place. They live for hitting the
stage, turning their amps up to 11 and tearing into their music. Unfortunately
for them, however, they haven’t had many opportunities to do that since they
signed with Mercury Records late in 1996.

Oh, they’ve gotten to do plenty of really cool things since—from recording a
multi-platinum CD in Los Angeles, to appearing on every major talk show known
to man, to touring the world, including several trips to Europe—but actually
playing live with a full band and electric guitars and keyboards and a drum set
and amplifiers has been a luxury afforded them only infrequently. Most of their
performances over the past year have been brief acoustic appearances meant to
bolster public awareness (as if they needed help there) and enthuse the media.

"There’s a fairly common misconception that we actually did a concert tour of
Europe," says Ike. "But we were actually just doing promotion that whole time.
It’s not nearly as fulfilling when you’re just doing a 15-30 minute acoustic
show for these people who are there to see you perform. You want to give them
more than that. And you want to play longer for your own satisfaction too."

Now it looks like they’ll finally get their chance to be a touring pop band.
Hitting the road in April with local pop band Admiral Twin as their opening
act, Hanson will be performing all the songs from their debut CD, Middle of
Nowhere, along with some songs from the two independently produced CDs they
released before they were signed, some brand new material, and a few
influential golden oldies such as Aretha Franklin’s "Think" and The Spencer
Davis Group’s "Gimme Some Lovin’."