Bringing big acts such as Reba and Toby Keith not only brought Tooele County a load of weekend tourism, but also made country music come alive for local fans of the genre.
Country fans from all over the west came together at Country Explosion at Deseret Peak Complex to celebrate their love of the genre in a fair-like atmosphere of copious quantities of fried foods, sunscreen, assorted Americana, beer — and all the shirtless cowboys a cowgirl could ask for.
Numerous locals took advantage of the four-day festival’s home-field venue to treat themselves to a country-style night out. Or an entire weekend, augmented, perhaps, with other country-oriented activities Tooele County has to offer.
Grantsville resident Brandi Snow and her mother, Sheila, planned not only to attend Friday night concerts at Country Explosion, but had also planned a trip to the horse races on Saturday to celebrate Brandi’s 25th birthday. The highlight of the weekend, Sheila said early Friday afternoon, would be seeing Reba live in concert.
“I love her voice, the twang, the lyrics,” Sheila said. “It’s still good country, good, old country.”
Others came in from the surrounding community to celebrate what, for them, is a way of life.
“I grew up on [country music],” said Shayla Hand, a Clearfield resident. “It’s just what you listen to in Utah.”
The location of the venue added to the atmosphere of the event, despite the delay caused by Tooele Valley’s two-lane country roads, her husband said.
“Tooele’s out in the middle of nowhere,” Jonathan Hand said. “And it definitely has enough space.”
But the concert also succeeded in bringing in fans from out of state.
“I’d drive anywhere for Reba,” said Stephanie Herr, an Elko, Nevada, resident who wore a hand-painted T-shirt with a marriage proposal for Reba. “I read her autobiography in the fifth grade.”
While she said she was pleased with the new venue, Herr said her concert experience — which included camping through the weekend — hadn’t been without snags.
“It’s a little disorganized,” she said, “but the volunteers have been super nice.”
While concert-goers said they’d had an overall good experience at the festival, the first few days of the event brought mixed results for local vendors. The Children’s Justice Center, which had a booth and received a shout-out during the concerts, saw success bringing in donations.
“This is kind of a different venue for us, but it’s been OK,” said Sylvia Dalton, a child advocate with CJC.
Other local vendors expressed frustration at their tent’s location away from the main events and about their difficulty bringing in customers.
“We’re a mile away from the concert,” said Shawn Bennett, a vendor selling goods alongside his business partner, Grantsville’s Taco Man. “There’s no flow for the vendors. I even mentioned it to Commissioner [Shawn] Milne.”
In addition to the 14 national acts that performed every evening on County Explosion’s main stage, the festival featured performances by nearly 20 up-and-coming bands, mostly from the Salt Lake area, on a secondary stage. The smaller bands had a hard time drawing attention in the shadow of performers like Reba, but said they were determined to make the best of it.
“We’re the ‘on the way to the bathroom’ band, but that’s OK,” said Richard Bettinson, a guitarist with Dirt Road Devils, from Salt Lake City.
Though the band ended up with a smaller audience than it has played for in the past, Bettinson said it was still a lot of fun to play a couple gigs for the four-day country festival.