Anderson, IN

November 15-16, 2019

When I heard Hanson was going to be playing a show in Anderson, Indiana, my immediate reaction was “What the heck? That’s where I went to college! It’s a… nothing town!” I’m talking we would drive through the corn fields and get lost on purpose because there was nothing else to do type of town. I still don’t understand why their schedule took them there, but I was excited for the excuse to go back and be nostalgic.

We got into town Friday afternoon and I forced my friends to have lunch at a hole-in-the-wall diner called The Lemon Drop. It has about 4½ booths, a handful of barstools, and a little train that goes around the ceiling. I always loved their toasted cheeseburger, but I have to admit it didn’t taste quite as great this time around (yeah, Hanson pun intended). Maybe that’s the difference of having a bank account with more than one zero to the left of the decimal.

We spent a little time in the casino before the show (because, honestly, what else were we to do?) and I decided to go ahead and gamble a bit. I bet a total of $11 and ended with $0.03… now that’s how I remember life in Anderson. (You know… the whole broke college kid thing… mom, dad, I promise I didn’t gamble in college. They didn’t even have a casino back then.)

The concert was held in a room that is typically used to view horse races, so this was one of the stranger places I’ve seen Hanson perform (and yet somehow also my second time seeing them on a horse track this year). Here’s hoping that in 2020 we go back to some normal concert venues. The concert itself was high-energy, and no matter how many times I do this, I will never get over how nothing else in the world feels quite like being in the crowd with my friends, dancing away to our favorite songs. Zac is still not quite ready to be back on drums following his motorcycle accident, and toward the end of the show he walked right by my row playing his heart out on the cowbell. I’m ready for him to be healed and back on drums, but he makes for a great frontman and I’m curious to see if this has any impact on future Hanson shows and songs… will we end up seeing more Taylor on drums because of this? Who knows.

After the show, we went to grab some late-night dinner and drinks and, well, apparently Isaac and Taylor (and Dash & crew) had the same idea. I suppose when there’s no backstage and only one restaurant that’s open late, it ends up not being much of a coincidence. There were a couple other fans there as well, and we were all playing it cool… until MMMBop started playing over the TouchTunes jukebox. I have to admit, I immediately started judging the other fans. But, I owe them an apology as we later found out it was the restaurant manager that decided to play it. I guess when you’re in a small enough town, even a celebrity you never liked and barely remember is exciting enough to not know how to be chill. We weren’t going to ask them for photos, but as they were leaving, the staff started asking for pictures, and then so did the other fans, so we decided to go ahead as they didn’t seem to mind. So, here’s a special thanks to ~~Isaac~~ Tangent Man and ~~Taylor~~ Don Music for putting up with the ridiculousness that was Friday night.

Saturday morning, I had only one destination in mind: Deluxe Donuts. This was one of my go-to places back in college, and I knew even before leaving Nashville that this was one of the places where I had to go back. We just grabbed a couple donuts to go, and then I gave Katie and Katie (you read that right) a driving tour of campus. Five minutes later when that was done, I took them to the next (bigger) town over, Muncie. I was first introduced to Thai food in Muncie and they still have my favorite cashew nut chicken.

We then went back to campus, because the other Number One Place To Revisit on my list was Mocha Joe’s, the campus coffee shop. But, college students are lazy on the weekends, so it didn’t open until 1pm, so we had to wait until after lunch. I grabbed an (overly sweet, too-many-flavors combined) latte called I’m Dating Jesus (like… seriously) and wandered through the student center. It’s gotten quite the overhaul since I graduated in 2006, so at least now I know what I’ve been paying for all these years.

The absolute most meaningful place to me in all of Anderson, Indiana is a house I lived in for two months in the summer of 2005. In order to keep this blog a little shorter and not rehash it all, I’ll just direct you to my Instagram post here, if you’re curious enough to read about it. Anderson was always a pretty run-down town: a handful of chain restaurants and hotels near the interstate, a couple thousand college students (if that), faculty, and lower class factory workers. Going back for the first time since the Great Recession, it’s sad to see just how much worse it has gotten. I can dish out jokes about there being nothing to do there, but my heart will always go out to the people who live there and how they helped shape my early adulthood.

I’ll end this post with one more Anderson factoid: musician Jon McLaughlin grew up in Anderson, attended AU the same time I did, and now also lives in Nashville. If you’ve been following my blog, you may recall that I saw him play a show during my last night in Hawaii back in September, so now these random Hanson one-off shows have come full circle. It also feels appropriate to end with a college collage.