Photos and review by Greg Wong
Festival goers line dance in City Hall Plaza
The inaugural Boston Rodeo took place at City Hall Plaza on Saturday, September 20th. The daylong event featured Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) sanctioned rodeo events and live music performances from both local and nationally-touring artists. Rising independent folk artist Evan Honer headlined a main stage billing that also included Kassi Ashton and the O’Connor Brothers Band.
The rodeo and local performances took place in the late afternoon to start things off. The small side stage showcased local performers like Brennan Burns and was situated adjacent to the vendor alley where attendees on the lookout for food, cowboy apparel, or even the mechanical bull were more likely to wander over. The pro rodeo events took place on a fenced-in dirt arena that had been constructed in the very center of Boston’s city hall plaza, but the competition was completed by 5:30 pm, well ahead of the full scheduled time. The entertainment then switched over towards line-dancing, and it was apparent that the event had drawn in a healthy crowd of dance enthusiasts. Meanwhile, the busy work of shifting the focus entirely towards the live performances began, and the arena fencing was dismantled to open the space to the main stage crowd.
Attendance fluctuated a bit after the rodeo finished and the livestock were transported away, but once the crowd stabilized it remained largely consistent for the remainder of the event. By 6:40, the five piece Coloradan rock band the O’Connor Brothers Band took to the main stage for the first of three evening sets. They made their Boston debut with a 50 minute set. Country singer/songwriter Kassi Ashton followed with her hour-long set and both performances were enthusiastically received by a crowd that spanned a respectable distance back onto the dirt patch where the rodeo arena had been. Hailing from the small town of California, Missouri, Kassi Ashton joked that the crowd in front of her was equivalent to the entire population of her hometown.
Evan Honer front-flipped his way into position on stage and seized the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to greet the crowd with “I’m Evan Honer and this is literally my first rodeo.” He closed out the night with a set that overcame a late start and some unlucky technical difficulties; he broke a guitar string during the first song and had to swap guitars a few times during the first several songs. Nevertheless he powered through with an endearing charisma and treated fans to a roughly hour-long set that highlighted songs from his brand new album Everything I Wanted, a cover of The Cranberries’ “Linger,” and a Tyler Childers “Jersey Giant” cover that earned him the viral success that kick-started his career. He performed as long as he was able to, up until the concert ran into the hard curfew of 10:30, at which point he was obligated to wrap things up quickly. With Evan Honer’s worthy finishing set, the first Boston Rodeo concluded on a high note that may portend more to come.
Check out all of Greg’s photos from the show below.
