FLORENCE — The Grascals were plucking into their bluegrass cover of the Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” when the Slingshot’s big metal cage shot 100 heart-stopping feet straight up.
The ride’s cage twirled, and legs dangling out flipped up, then down. A handful of people stood below oohing and ahhing. But you couldn’t hear it over the applause from the roughly 9,000 people watching the Grascals deliver some fine bluegrass accents to Country Thunder 2010’s opening night.
The addition of a trio of thrill rides, including the Slingshot, is among a handful of innovations to the 17-year-old country-music festival. And given that the rides are smack in the middle of the festival grounds, they’re impossible to ignore.
The grounds have been turned topsy-turvy; the main stage has been uprooted from the middle of the sprawling field to the far end nearest the parking lot. The secondary stage is tucked off to the side at the other end, not far from the cluster of rides that also includes the mechanical bull.
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Vendors whose stalls once wrapped around two-thirds of the grounds are now clustered in several U-shaped spaces with no apparent marketing theme. In one cluster, Aleks Bergen sells $115 wedge flip-flops studded with Swarovski crystals. Next door, a trio of people collect signatures for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Dean Martin.
In the next group of tents and tables, Phil Vanayne makes a soft sell for his Redneck America T-shirt line. Hey, he says with a smile, come back on Saturday. They’ll all be discounted.
Across the way, Heidi Martincic was using the last rays of sunlight Wednesday afternoon to unload boxes of her vintage costume jewelry from her 1966 Airstream trailer. A sign near a table piled with necklaces, bracelets and rings read “Paris Montana Flea Market,” and on another table was a picture of the former advertising executive with country star Miranda Lambert sporting one of the creations. “Who knows?” she mused aloud. Perhaps Lambert would sneak away from her tour bus during her headlining gig today and buy another piece.
Back at the Slingshot, Johnathan Tyler and co-worker Tamra Turner were predicting they would have a busy weekend, even though it costs $30 for two people to take the one-minute ride.
“I’m addicted to it,” Tyler said, boasting that he has ridden it no less than 500 times. “It’s like coffee. It’s addictive.”
