The annual
Minnesota State Fair, kicked off on Thursday and will continue until Labor Day, September 4th, 2023.
Thanks to good weather, attendance for the second night of the Great Get-Together was incredibly good. The event hosts the free “Park & Ride” system, which have you park at a different location and they will bus you into the fair. When the parking lots aren’t full, it’s awesome… when they’re all full, like on Friday mid-day, getting to the fair can be a challenge.
We somehow made it in, and wow, what a turn out.
We were there mostly to see
The Bacon Brothers at the Leinie Lodge Bandshell stage, but unfortunately, thanks to the popularity of Kevin Bacon, the seating area were all full.
As you know the Brothers are Kevin Bacon and Michael Bacon, with bassist Paul Guzzone, lead guitarist Tim Quick, keys Joe Mennonna, and drummer Frank Vilardi. The band’s latest release is
Erato.
We were also there to check out swing revival, country trio,
The Quebe Sisters, currently on their “Bye for Now” tour. This is the last time we will see the three sisters, Grace, Sophia, and Hulda Quebe, on tour before their hiatus, after 23 years of hard-working and touring.
Sophia explained after this tour, they’re going to take some “much-needed R&R and time off the road. For now, we are taking an undetermined hiatus. This isn’t retirement for us, just a nice break.”
The Quebe Sisters played two sets at the Leinie Lodge Bandshell Stage, at 1pm and 3pm.
They had great harmonies, and they reminded me a little of
The Andrew Sisters (you can hear one of their
song with Danny Kaye).
Their set had plenty of traditional/cover songs, such as “Shame on You” by Spade Cooley, “Roly Poly” by Fred Rose, and “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael.
Some original songs played were “Every Which-a-Way” and “Day People.”
There were music everywhere, and trying to get from A to Z can be tough, especially with all the food distractions. Still we were able to see Tejano band
Javier Trejo y Caballo Cósmico at the International Bazaar Stage,
Lady Midnight (the stagename for Adriana Rimpel) at the MPR stage, cover band
Steve Clarke and the Working Stiffs at AFL-CIO stage, and a young 15-year-old singer
Samantha Haatvedt at French Créperie.
 Dem Atlas and Lady Midnight (29 June 2019)
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We haven’t seen Lady Midnight since her appearance at
Rock the Garden 2019: “We have to say the highlight of his (Dem Atlas) set was bringing on Lady Midnight to help him sing “Music Man”. Lady Midnight would outro the song to Lauryn Hill’s “Doo-Wop (That Thing)”. Dem Atlas then declared Lady Midnight as “the best artist in the Twin Cities!””
We also caught a live taping of
Twin Cities Live with hosts Ben Leber and Elizabeth Ries. Some segments from their show includes Fair Fashion with Amy Seeman.
With hundreds of music events within the Minnesota State Fair, it’s definitely a lot of value for the money. If music isn’t your thing, there’s still plenty of things to do for the whole family, so the State Fair comes highly recommended. Getting there might be a problem, but otherwise, the Minnesota State Fair is one of the best State Fair in the country.
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