I forgot to take some time and review this show. Late August at a quaint old theater in Greenville Texas I saw this year’s version of the “Happy Together Tour” formally called Hippie Fest. It’s an oldies tour with Flow and Eddie of the Turtles serving as host and headliners along with several other acts. Each act plays 5 or 6 songs. There is an intermission. The theater is very old, in fact Elvis played there in 50’s. Greenville is small rural town about an hour north east of Dallas. I normally would night this far for a gig and certainly not this gig, but I was lucky enough to receive a free ticket.
This year along with the Turtles were Mitch Ryder of the Detroit Wheels, Mark Farner from Grand Fun Railroad and Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night. There was one backing band for each of the acts and these guys could play! The Turtles have a few good songs but they talk a lot and it’s some corny humor. It’s so lame. I don’t see why anyone would find them funny. Mitch Ryder was better than I expected. Mark Farner stole the show. He was energetic , played his guitar and worked the stage. He still sounds good vocally too. Chuck Negron was passable but statuesque his entire set. All the acts jammed a brief medley at the end of the show.
Last time I saw this tour Jack Bruce was the headliner and that was very cool, but this linup was better top to bottom. For the 50-75 bucks tickets were running it would have been underwhelming but for free it was pretty good.
Mitch Ryder Set list:
Little latin lupe lu
Jenny take a ride
Sock it to me, baby
Too many fish in the sea
Devil with a blue dress
Mark Farner:
The Loco-motion
American Band
Bad time
Some kind of wonderful
Closer to home
Chuck Negron:
Mama told me not to come
Celebrate
Shambala
Eli’s coming
One
Joy to the world
The Turtles:
She’d rather be with me
You baby
It aint me babe
You showed me
Peaches en regalia
Elenore
Happy together