Rain is a good thing?

By Ryan Gueningsman
Managing Editor

Rain is a good thing?

Country singer Luke Bryan seems to think it is in his latest hit song of that name, but odds are you won’t catch Winstock Country Music Festival Chairman Dave Danielson singing along to that song again anytime soon. Once was enough when the song was played at the beginning of the annual meeting Wednesday night for all Winstock volunteers.

“I will never sing ‘Rain is a Good Thing’ again,” Danielson said with a laugh. “If you hear me sing that song, kick me.”

With Bryan being an artist Winstock could consider booking in the future, Danielson jokingly said Bryan won’t be able to perform that song if he plays at Winstock.

“I’ll ban him from singing that song,” Danielson joked.

Early Friday morning, that rain came and hit the grounds of the Winstock Country Music Festival in Winsted hard.

Over the course of Winstock weekend, Danielson said the area received approximately four inches of rain.

“I think we were real prepared,” Danielson said Sunday morning. “We had a lot of the stuff done ahead of time and a lot of good volunteer effort to get the grounds ready so, when it came, we dealt with it.”

The biggest thing, Danielson said, was the “lake” that was created along 230th Street.

“A lot of our vendor people along that road that were definitely in the water, so we had Henning Excavating come out and perform their miracles again,” Danielson said.

Pumps moved between 6,000 and 8,000 gallons of water per minute and ran solid for four hours, Danielson added.

“Not like this hasn’t happened to us before. I hate to say it, but we’re getting used to this – the muddy conditions,” he said. He does expect a quick rebound of the festival grounds from the heavy rains and heavy traffic over the weekend.

“We’ll go out there in a couple weeks and it’ll be just fine,” Danielson said. “The grounds will bounce back. We’ll have to do a little manicuring and fill in some rock, but we’ll get it done. Our volunteers who make this happen year after year are outstanding. I can’t thank them enough.”

The music

Danielson said he felt all the entertainers this year did a great job, and said one nice thing was that most artists played songs that the crowd could sing along to.

“They played a lot of the hits – people like singing along to what the artists are playing. They don’t necessarily like to hear all their new stuff, so overall I though the entertainers really lived up to what a festival likes by having the oldies and goodies.”

Danielson said country-soul legend Ronnie Milsap put on a fantastic show.

“Alan Jackson also had them on their feet the whole time – it was utter chaos, but our security did quite a job controlling it and everyone had fun.”

In addition to throwing close to 20 guitar picks from the stage into the crowd throughout his performance, Jackson and his crew also produced a video filled with local scenes and people that was shown as he performed his encore song “Where I Come From.”

“I heard about that video and it sounded unbelievable,” Danielson said. “I heard it really showed the community.”

Danielson wasn’t able to catch the video for himself as he was working.

“Most of the time, I don’t get to watch,” he admitted. “I normally don’t sit down and watch a whole show. I did take time off to see Trailer Choir – they’re a lot of fun.”