Everything that happened at Country Thunder this year

FLORENCE — The buzz at last year's Country Thunder festival was about a band out of Nashville called A Thousand Horses and their debut radio single "Smoke."

The song was burning up radio play and all the radio guys/gals and industry types couldn't say enough about the song and the band. Many were wishing out loud that A Thousand Horses would land on the 2016 Country Thunder lineup.

On Sunday evening, A Thousand Horses made its Country Thunder debut and lived up to all that hype in a 60-minute Southern rock-tinged show. I think I and thousands of others among the crowd that filled the muddy festival grounds found our new country music crush.

This is a band with members who wear their hair long in the Southern rock tradition and sing a love song that compares their best gal to the addiction of smoking. They rock, yet there's strong country tradition beneath the pulsating percussion and driving rock guitar riffs.

Frontman Michael Hobby, dressed in a derby style hat and sunglasses, had that laid-back swagger of a singer who knows his band is going places. He took us through the band's debut album "Southernality," including the driving cover song, and showed us how he and his and gets trailer-trash drunk on "Tennessee Whiskey." He also convinced us that "(This Ain't No) Drunk Dial" before slowing it down on "Back to Me."

A Thousand Horses kicked off the beginning of the end of the 2016 Country Thunder festival on Sunday. It was a day that was arguably the most country night of the four-day festival, with neo-traditionalist Randy Houser opening for headliner Eric Church, an artist who takes his country with a healthy dose of "don't give a damn," following in the footsteps of one of the late Merle Haggard who he credits with being an influence on his career. 

FLORENCE — The rain came in sheets for an hour or so, leaving behind pond-sized puddles and country music fans scrambling for cover beneath rain coats — if you were luck enough — or plastic bag-like covers.

Those cost $5 from a Country Thunder vendor who wisely studied the weather reports and knew that the bright skies and sun that followed the brief rain Sunday morning was just a tease.

Noe Barja and Krystal Bell from Phoenix took the bait and bought the rain covers. The couple was determined, come knee-high rains or whipping winds, they were going to tough out the weather through Eric Church's headlining show Sunday night. 

The rain prompted Country Thunder organizers to postpone the start of Sunday's shows. After an hour had passed, the organizers shifted the lineup, canceling Nashville newcomer Courtney Cole's 2:30 p.m. show. (She is returning to Arizona for a show May 5 at Denim and Diamonds in Mesa.) Texas singer Casey Donahew kicked things off at 4 p.m. before a crowd that grew to several hundred, many wading through puddles of mud and water to get close enough to hear Donahew and his band sing about his "Double-Wide Dream" and other red dirt country songs that have propelled him from regional Texas success to notice on a larger stage.

Thirty minutes into his show, the sun again muscled out the clouds and the audience started to shed the rain gear. It will likely prove to be Mother Nature teasing us again, but we'll take it. 

FLORENCE — California country singer Cam walked gingerly on the metal ramp bridging the Country Thunder stage and catwalk Saturday night. 

She was wearing yellow high heels, not impossibly high but high enough to intimidate when faced with a potentially slippery metal surface.

On her first attempt, she crawled, sitting on the ramp and scooching down. After a few attempts, she conquered her fears — "Oh snap! I got the ramp!" she exclaimed. But the thought of her taking a spill was too much for Richard Basile and Steve Abrams, two veterans of the Country Thunder backstage crew and longtime Tucson residents. 

The pair and a couple of their colleagues — also from Tucson — sprung into action, grabbing wooden steps from beneath the stage and switching out the ramp for the steps. Problem solved.

That's what these guys do, solve problems to help create magic on the giant Country Thunder stage here so that the 27,000 or so who have turned out for the 2016 festival each of the festival's four days can enjoy some of the biggest names in country music.

Basile, Abrams and Joseph Galioto have been leaders on the backstage crew for Country Thunder for 16 years, traveling to the festival's sister events in Wisconsin and, briefly, Texas; Country Thunder lasted one year before pulling out of the Lonestar State. The crew likely will hit Canada when the festival debuts in Calgary, Alberta, for a three-day event Aug. 19-21.

The trio and their crew is responsible for setting up the stage before the festival kicks off and taking it down when the festival raps up. They manage the backstage, from sound engineering and stage set up to loading and unloading band equipment stored in heavy crates and cases. They are fast and efficient, with a crew of more than a dozen all hailing from Tucson, and they have good rapport with the artists. Cam barely missed a beat when Basile and Abrams snuck onto her stage to switch out the ramp.

Basile, Abrams and Galioto have been fixtures in Tucson's music scene for years, doing sound and stage engineering at venues including the old New West and Gotham, Kino Sports Complex and Desert Diamond Casino.

"You build a relationship with the people," Basile said, mentioning Sunday night headliner Eric Church as an example. "These people remember you. They come up and say hi."

One of Galioto's fondest stage memories was the time he kicked Taylor Swift off the stage in Wisconsin because she didn't have the proper credentials. The little girl — Swift was in her early teens at the time — obliged and Galioto remembers his fellow stage hands looking at him with shocked expressions.

"That's the headliner you just threw off the stage," they told him. 

"I had no idea," he recalled.

The Tucson crew might have their hands full on Sunday. The weather forecast early on called for rain off and on throughout the day accompanied by mild winds. Early Sunday as a the clouds blanketed the Country Thunder West festival grounds and a cold drizzle soaked the dirt and alfalfa fields surrounding the stage, Abrams led a crew of workers in covering stage equipment with plastic carps. They also reinforced the lighting apparatus in the event the wind picked up.

Thirty minutes later, the sun was blazing hot and bright and the clouds had turned from an ominous black to fluffy white. But moments before the first act was to go on stage, the rain returned with a steady stream, the wind picked up and it got downright cold. The Tucson guys stood by ready to leap into action.

FLORENCE — Rain coming down in buckets and wind whipping the flags over vendor stands and RVs into a frenzy has delayed the start of the final day of Country Thunder.

Organizers said they are watching the weather and believe the storm will pass.

FLORENCE — In case you're wondering if the threat of rain is going to affect the final day of Country Thunder, here's one big assurance: Eric Church is in the house. 

And barring something catastrophic, like 30 or 40 mph winds that threaten to topple the speaker towers or rip the stage canvass off its metal reinforcements, Church will go on as the night's headliner at 10 p.m. Sunday.

Country Thunder 2016's final day was looking like it might be a soggy one. Modest winds followed by a sustained but light rain greeted many early festival arrivers around noon. But within minutes, the rain had stopped and the wind was a gentle breeze. The sun quickly muscled out the clouds and bathed the empty Country Thunder West festival grounds in brilliant light.

The National Weather Service is playing it safe, forecasting a 15 percent chance of rain throughout the day Sunday. By the time opener 
Courtney Cole goes on stage at 2:30 p.m., the temperature is expected to be about 60 with light winds. Good news is that the call for rain is off and the winds aren't forecast to top 7 mph by the time Church goes on.

FLORENCE — There had been mentions from the stage, and a few sobering recollections, but until Saturday night no one had paid a truly proper tribute to the late country icon Merle Haggard.

Both the headliner Jake Owen and his opener Chris Janson, gave the Hag his due, Janson going so far as to devote a big chunk of his hour-long set to the singer who died Wednesday — on his 79th birthday.

"Some people pass and you're OK with it," he told the audience that had swelled beyond 25,000 by the time he took the stage at 8 p.m. "But Merle's a different deal, people."

Janson was one of the last artists to tour with Haggard, who became ill early this year and cancelled a number of concerts in March. Janson got to stand on a stage with the man, rub shoulders with a legend who influenced the 30-year-old, and those experiences needed more than a song or few sobering words to fully appreciate.

Janson, sporting a 1979 Merle Haggard and the Strangers tour shirt, performed Haggard's "Footlights" and a medley of other classic Hag hits that included "My Favorite Memory."

Janson, a no-bones-about-it country artist in the purest sense of the notion, also performed his hits including the rocking if-I-win-the-lottery fantasy "Buy Me A Boat" and a lush ballad "Holding Her" that he wrote for his wife. That song is set to go to radio on May 2. One of the highlights of his show was when LoCash's Preston Brust and Chris Lucas joined him for the inspiring hand-clapper "I Love My Life," which Janson penned with the LoCash boys. Their appearance on his stage was repayment in kind for his appearance on their set earlier Saturday. 

Owen was enjoying his first Country Thunder headlining slot and he made the most of it in a 90-minute show that mixed his hits with a handful of covers of everything from Alabama's "Mountain Music" to Van Halen's "Jump."

That seems to be the pattern with artists, to sprinkle familiar covers  into their sets maybe as a way to keep new audiences interested or fill in blanks when you don't feel your own material can fill the time slot. But Owen has enough really good, upbeat songs and ballads to fill 90 minutes, many of which he played Saturday night: "Barefoot Blue Jean Night," "Eight Second Ride," "Real Life," "Keepin' It Country," 'Beachin'," "One That Got Away," "Anywhere" and his latest single "Real Life." 

Also on Saturday:

• There were a few tricky moments early in California country singer Cam's early evening show when she tried to navigate the metal ramp bridging the stage and catwalk wearing bright yellow heels. She teetered a bit then plopped down and shimmied on her backside. After a few close calls, backstage crew members Richard Basile and Steve Abrams, both from Tucson, switched out the ramp for a set of steps.

Cam played most of her debut album "Untamed," including her hit ballad "Burning House" with a chorus assist from the audience.

•  LoCash moved up a few slots on the lineup this year. They were one of the first acts on the marquee in 2014, meaning they played to four people, according to Preston Brust. This duo is a lot of fun and it's easy to see them move up to opening for a headliner or even headlining. In addition to their No. 1 hit "I Love This Life," the pair performed their testament to drinking "I Know Somebody," roping the audience in for the punchline chorus: One long island, two long island, three long island, fall." When someone in the crowd sang "four long island" instead of "fall," Lucas set them straight:

"Nobody gets to four," he said, noting that's why the fourth verse is fall. Four Long Island Ice Teas and you're down for the count.

Country Thunder wraps up Sunday with Thousand Horses, Randy Houser and headliner Eric Church. 

FLORENCE — Florida country singer Casee Allen had to compete with the sun for attention Saturday afternoon from the several hundred folks at Country Thunder.

So he did what any aspiring country singer in his position would do: He sang about sex.

Sex sells, especially when the temperature outside is hoovering near 80 and the sun feels like it's blazing at least 20 degrees hotter than that.

Allen's sexy ballad "Perfume" surely had all the ingredients of an attention grabber — it had some sultry come-hither lyrics and bluesy, hip-swaying innuendo. And it worked, sort of. The people in the concert bowl — that's what they call the main festival area near the stage — stuck around for his 45-minute set.

But it seemed nothing could lure away the small crowd standing in bunched up lines at the Country Thunder merchandise tent in the shadow of the giant slingshot. 

Band members of California country newcomer Cam bravely mounted the sling shot ride, a behemoth proposition for the drunk much less the sober among the Country Thunder crowd. Here's how it works: You're strapped inside a metal cage attached to giant rubberbands and it hurls you 100 mph 200 feet straight up in the air. OK, that is the simple explanation; judging from the computer setup and control panels, it's much more complicated and safer than it looks.

A few minutes before they took on the slingshot, several of Cam's band members including drummer Wally Waldron ditched their T-shirts and went bare-chested while they tossed a Frisbee backstage.

"It's fantastic, amazing," Waldron said of the weather as he missed a toss and had to climb through a fence to retrieve the disc. "I'm from Sweden, it's cold."

Cam ("Burning House") is set to take the stage at 6:30 Saturday. Headliner Jake Owen goes on at 10.

FLORENCE — Country Thunder seems to be themed this year.

On opening day, it was all about the newbies (Brooke Eden, Chase Bryant) and the guys who've been around just long enough to dust the newbie title (Old Dominion, Kip Moore).

On Friday, it was mostly about who could rock harder and louder. It started with opener Haley Georgia, a former hip-hop artist and "American Idol" aspirant who's now all in for country. But her flavor of country has screaming guitars and girls who rock attitude.

Then there was Cadillac 3, an unapologetic metal country act whose hour-long show was all screams, thumping drums and crazy guitar rants with country at its core but not its mission.

Cole Swindell followed not quite as loudly as the Nashville trio, nor as hard. His rocking country leans more on the country side of the dial. He sings songs about getting to see the girl and the urge of just wanting her to need him as much as he needs her. 

As the opener for headliner Florida Georgia Line, Swindell had the task of keeping the crowd energized for the main event. He did that in spades, performing his rocking "You Ain't Worth the Whiskey" and infusing it with the bluesy chorus from Justin Timberlake's "Drink You Away." He tossed in a couple covers of Tim McGraw's "Real Good Man" and Kenny Chesney's "Don't Happen Twice." He also covered Thomas Rhett's "Get Me Some of That," but it wasn't really a cover; Swindell penned the song.

A couple of his brightest moments actually came when he broke the mold of the day and slowed things down for the midtempo ballad "Hope You Get Lonely" and the heart-wrenching "You Should Be Here."

Florida Georgia Line straddled three genres: rock, country and hip-hop.  They started their show with a string of hip-hop songs, struting down the catwalk with all the demeanor and swagger of rappers. They even brought along fellow Country Thunder artist Randy Hauser — who arrived two days early for his Sunday show — to sing "Round Here." (Hauser looked like he was caught unawares; he didn't really know the lyrics but he was a good sport, strutting down the catwalk with Hubbard.)

About halfway into an hour-long set before 27,000 fans, they returned to their more country pop songs, including bringing Swindell on stage to sing "This is How We Roll" — a song Swindell wrote — "Cruise," "Confession," "Get Your Shine On" and "It'z Just What We Do."

Newcomers Cam and Chris Janson are on Saturday's lineup, warming things up for headliner Jake Owen who recently has introduced a bit of hip-hop to his country. 

FLORENCE — Joseph Ard printed across the Country Thunder West festival grounds, zig-zagging the open alfalfa field with his camping chairs banging against his legs as he ran.

His girlfriend Sara Yount and a few other people lagged behind him as he darted for the empty space against the fence that separates the general admission area from the pricier VIP assigned seats.

Ard, 20, is an old Country Thunder pro; the Phoenix resident remembers attending the country music festival years ago when it was in Queen Creek.

“This is as close as you can get to the stage outside of the VIP area,” he said, as a handful of fans set up their chairs and blankets next to him.

Ard wasn’t as lucky on Thursday, when the four-day festival opened. It runs through Sunday.

Ard and Yount lingered in their campsite and pretty much missed all of the shows, he said. By the time the pair got motivated to check out the music when Old Dominion was on stage opening for headliner Kip Moore, the wind had picked up and with it came an annoying rain that only grew stronger as the night progressed.

The rain might prove to be a problem through the weekend with wind and sprinkles in the forecast through Sunday. But that didn’t diminish attendance; Country Thunder officials estimated that 27,000 people turned out Thursday and the number is expected to be about the same each night.

On Friday, ominous gray clouds blanketed the festival grounds before the Tucker Beathard band took the stage at 2:30 p.m. A few sprinkles popped up before the sun came out.

The sun was blasting hot when Ard made his sprint. Not far from where he set up his chairs, Logan Fraser from Canada, who works for Country Thunder, was showing his 2-year-old daughter London the wild horses in the pens near the small rodeo grounds. Randy Helm leads the cowboy church services on Sunday morning. The preacher and former police officer also supervises the Arizona Wildhorse Inmate Program, which he founded four years ago. He has 530 horses, all rescued from open prairie lands along the Arizona-Mexico and Texas borders as well as from California and Wyoming.

Thirty inmates from the state prison at Florence work with the horses, doing everything from feeding and shoeing the animals to breaking in the wild ones.

“The inmates who’ve done the program have never come back to prison,” Helm said as London’s mom, Karleen, held the girl so she could get a close look at one of the horses eating hay. “This has only been going on four years so you can cross your fingers and hope.”

Helm said about 400 people attended cowboy church at last year’s festival. He expects a similar number this year, but the service has been moved from Sunday to Saturday.

“Rain and wind are in the forecast Sunday morning and when the wind blows, no one can hear anything,” he said.

A man who wanted to be closer to the stage at Thursday night’s Country Thunder Music Festival was booked into the Pinal County jail after getting into a fight with deputies, authorities said.

Alexander Hull of Michigan moved the fence to the handicapped area, decreasing the size by five feet, in order to get closer to the stage, according to a post on the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.

When a deputy approached Hull, he tried to hide in the crowd, but was discovered and removed from the event.

He started to fight with deputies, and was arrested in connection with disorderly conduct.

Cadillac 3 frontman Jaren Johnston made no apologies when he and bandmates Kelby Ray and Neil Mason took the stage at Country Thunder Friday night. 

"We're a heavy metal country band," he shouted, and there was nothing wrong with that. 

From the reaction of the fans, topping 27,000, having a hard-rock band on the lineup added a little noise.

And Cadillac 3 is indeed loud as it blasted through some "Tennessee Mojo" and "Girls on Fire."

The band was on the lineup ahead of Cole Swindell, who opens for headliner Florida Georgia Line Friday night.

Florida Georgia Line's Brian Kelley and a trio of his entourage including his videographer hopped aboard a golf cart Friday afternoon and headed out into the Country Thunder camp grounds.

They meandered through aisle after aisle of campers, many of them sparsely dressed and abundantly lubricated with adult beverages, and not a single one recognized Kelley as being one half of the duo.

FLORENCE — It started as spittle really, an annoying drizzle that arrived just as Old Dominion was singing about rain at Country Thunder Thursday night. 

The drizzle graduated from annoyance to bothersome, accompanied by a breeze that quickly turned into something more gusty. Gusty enough to cause concern among those stage hands responsible for keeping the Country Thunder stage and all its parts in place.

So they delayed headliner Kip Moore's 10 p.m. show about 30 minutes — enough time that a couple hundred people headed to the exits. But when you have 27,000 or so people packed into the Country Thunder West festival grounds, missing a couple hundred didn't really make a difference.

Moore, dressed in tight jeans with strategic rips, a tank top and a backwards snapback, bounded atop a stage speaker and thanked the crowd that stuck out the rain.

"Y'all give us all you got and we'll give y'all all we got, I promise," he said a few songs into a 90-minute show that had flashes of Springsteen — a little rough-hewn with a genuine working man's authenticity. 

Moore sings about life in a world that most of his fans can probably relate: first-time love in the backseat of car on an unlit street; scraping together just enough "Beer Money" for a Friday night out; and "Something 'Bout a Truck" and the pretty girl that came with it.

Moore's show was rocking from start to finish, with a few sobering moments when he promised he'd come "Running for You" if "the rain starts fallin, fallin' on you / And your heart starts breakin', breakin' in two." The irony of those words wasn't lost on the audience, may hiding beneath plastic ponchos or hoodies.

This was Moore's second Country Thunder appearance; he debuted at the festival in 2013 as a deep-in-the-lineup opener.

The festival picks up Friday with Tucker Beathard at 2:30 p.m. Florida Georgia Line is the headliner.