Stagecoach Day 2: An evil chicken, face playing and tasty BBQ
May 3rd, 2008, 4:06 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Kelli Skye Fadroski
As I’ve been walking around the Empire Polo Field taking in the sights, sounds and especially the smells of this second helping of Stagecoach, I figured I’d share a few of the festival’s oddities. First and foremost: the special tent just for kids called the Half Pint Hootenanny. If I was a kid I would be scared as heck of all of the insanity going on in there. I’m 25 and I’m deeply disturbed by what I’ve seen.
A ginormous feathered chicken statue (horrifyingly pictured), with a most evil look in its eye, sits at the front of the tent; kids (and drunk adults) can jump on and snap a photo with the massive poultry. The workers in the tent are equally distressing, dressed up as they are as country-folk characters (think a giant Raggedy Ann with a cowboy hat on – rosey cheeks and all). I’m just going to stay away from there from now on.
I skipped the Mustang Stage yesterday, but stopped by today to check out Riders in the Sky, a more traditional country-and-Western quartet and comedy act, all dressed like Buck Ownes — super colorful, dyed-in-the-wool country, and a much better family experience than stranding your wee ones with that freaky chicken next door.
I walked in on a face-as-instruments battle between upright bassist Too Slim (pictured) and guitarist Ranger Doug, creating beats by slapping themselves silly. It was cool — until Ranger Doug licked his fingers and made his ear make noises. So gross.
Ben and I also headed over to the BBQ competition for some eats, each of us trying an Orange County competitor, Smell My Butts BBQ and Four Q Country BBQ. Four Q handily won our votes for best pulled pork - Smell My Butts’ serving was just too fatty.
Four Q honcho Neil Strawder caters all around Southern California including venues in Ladera, Huntington Beach and Long Beach. He says he and his crew do things a little differently — although this is a country music festival, he likes to spice things up by playing a party soundtrack in his tent, keeping it funky while he and his crew dance around and hand out samples.
“You never know what you might get when you walk by,” Strawder said. “Maybe Toby Keith, maybe Run-D.M.C. We also name our meats funny things. Like our sausages - we call ‘em fatties. So we say we’ve been smokin’ fatties all day long, folks!”
Chris Rocke of Garden Grove, head of the Smell My Butts BBQ team, loves dishing out the meat himself and meeting people in the crowd for feedback on his grub. The small crowd near the tent was diggin’ the pulled pork he had slow cooked for 18 hours. But how the heck did he come up with such a stinky name as Smell My Butts BBQ?
“My partner was cooking meat one day in the back yard and I said, ‘Something smells so good!’ And he said, ‘Oh, you smell my butts’,” Rocke said. “Since then it’s just kinda stuck.”
Well alrighty then.
