Wildflower Festival 2015

To celebrate one our friends’ birthday, my husband and I attended a local music festival this past weekend, the Wildflower Festival, in Richardson, Texas.  It was a good time, and if you like classic rock of the 70’s and 80’s, you would have enjoyed it.  Pat Benetar played on Friday night, and Saturday when we attended, both .38 Special and Kansas hit the main stage.
The crowd around the main stage for .38 Special (below).  Their stage brought back so many memories – and when I went home and pulled out some old pictures, I remembered why…
Crowd for .38 special
The Wildflower festival is not  a new venue; it’s an annual event in the DFW Metroplex where I live, and I’ve attended it many times over the years.  That said, every time I go I do still feel a tinge of nostalgia because while both of my sons sing,  my youngest son started performing with a band at such a young age that his band became a bit of a local sensation, and performed at the Wildflower festival several years in a row.  They opened for a number of nationally touring bands, including Blue October  (one of the headliners on Friday night this year) and were even on television during the four years the band played together.
As would be the case of any proud parent, I kept a lot of the press releases and show bills from that period.  Below is a front page article from the Dallas Morning News, the largest newspaper for the Metroplex, featuring his band the first year they played the festival, in 2006.  The kid in the article holding the mic singing and jumping (left center, below) is my son, Joel Adam Russell,  the lead singer.
Minority Story pic 2
(I wonder if Ronnie Platt or Billy Greer’s moms still keep all their sons’ memorabilia too…)
Below is a group picture of our friends we attended the festival with this year.  Some people, you know, are shy – so I try to be sensitive of that fact, and so, like in this case, I didn’t want to make a big production of pointing out the birthday boy, but trust me, he’s in there, somewhere…
Our group with thunderbolts on Doug-final
Below, my husband and I wait to seer Kansas perform.  He had actually seen them live in concert back in Georgia where he went to high school, so I asked if they’d changed at all since then.  We’re both in our 50’s, so I didn’t even wait for him to answer before we both laughed-Daryl & me at festival
Just before Kansas hit the stage, I decided to try to make my way down to the front for some better pictures, and ended up making it all the way to the railing at the center of the stage  – with the help of the big, tall, dude (on my left, below), who was already there with his pretty wife, or girlfriend.
Paula in front of Kansas stage smiling
Unfortunately, I didn’t win the autographed guitar they gave away (below), but hey, ‘You can’t win if you don’t play.’
Giving away a guitar
We stayed to the very end of the show, to hear my favorite Kansas song: Carry On Wayward Son.  It was well worth the wait!
Ronnie Platt - Kansas
About Paula Reyne 62 Articles
I'm an entrepreneur-wife-mother turned-blogger who lives in Plano, TX with my husband and two fluffy, baby cats.

1 Comment

  1. Love all the pictures of your laenvder! I can smell the heavenly fragrance here in Texas! My husband and I lived in Terre Haute while he attended Rose-Hulman. We miss having four seasons!

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