Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Hanson does "The Walk" with a couple hundred fans in Northampton Friday afternoon

I hope Henning doesn't mind if I reprint his fine take on this afternoon's Hanson charity walk. Here's a link to his blog Living Rockumentary as a thanks!

"I dont' know anything about Hanson. Just that they had that song "Whoop Whoop De Doo" or something and they were just little kids. The songs was all right, I remember. It was a nice little sunshiney happy pop ditty. Well, their tour bus is outside by the Calvin Theatre here in Northampton, MA, where they are playing tonight apparently, and there is a group of girls out there standing around taking pictures of the bus. Hanson?!? Really, girls??

I must learn more about this.


Well, here, Donnie Moorhouse writes about this amazingly simple public relations and promotion technique. When the Hanson boys and their bus arrive in a town, they take a walk with fans. This creates a sort of impromptu parade and everyone, including me, starts to write about it.

Ok, upon further reading I see that there is a message to their walks also:
"Hanson is on the third leg of a tour supporting "The Walk" - their self-released CD of new songs that was partly inspired by a trip to Africa. The physical walk they take with fans before each show, a one mile "Barefoot Walk," is to raise awareness about the AIDS crisis in Africa and to hopefully inspire social change.

"We've done the walk in all situations, rain or shine," said Taylor Hanson, gearing up for the trek through Rochester. "The only way we won't do it is if there is a chance it would put fans through some undue misery."
This seems like a nice fun idea.

Hey, I didn't realize they were an independent band now. Interesting.

People love to use bands like this to show you how an independent band can be hugely successful business-wise. They never seem to mention the fact that if they hadn't been on a major label years ago, they wouldn't have thousands of built in fans already. Must be nice.

Ok, to show a little respect for these guys I will properly acknowledge that the name of their 1997 hit was not "Whoop Whoop De Doo" as I joked earlier on. It was "Mmm Bop".

Power to you, Hanson. Word.
-Henning


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