Hangout Fest “23: Redneck Renaissance

Welcome back Wranglos to the world of the living and this edition of the Dirt Won’t Come Off Summer Tour spotlights Hangout Fest in sunny Gulf Shores, Alabama. For a week leading up to the festival the wranglers prefest stage hand team has been busy at work building stages in the shadow of the Pink Pony Pub. ADA, trailer stages, temporary fencing and more, it’s all part of the festival mandate and the krewe was up for the task. There’s nothing more fun than slogging around in sand with steel toed boots. The prefest team would leave Wednesday before the festival and head east to Rockville while wook wranglers’ correspondent Pablo the Monkey King came south from Mobile to join the fray May 19-21, 2023 just down the road from Fort Morgan on the beaches of the Redneck Riviera. But you were there. You saw what was possible through the curved lenses of rock n roll. You are now in the eye of the storm. This is Hangout Fest “23: Redneck Renaissance. Thank you for your service.

The feeder bands included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rezz, Skrillex, John Summit, Lil Nas X, Louis the Child and more, all who brought the real vibration to the stages of Hangout Fest. For some, it was a return to the beaches of their youth. Lucy and Baitbucket were reunited with a beach they had lived on as far back as 1974 and photographs inside the Hangout Restaurant echoed reminders of how much the beach and surrounding town had grown. Quinn and Pablo made the loop, bought the ticket, saw the show. Somehow they ended up in the VIP swimming pool near the tequila tent. An amazing turn of events to be sure. Some mysteries are best left unsolved.

On the way back to the land of yellow flies and no se-umsm, they stopped off in Santa Rosa Beach to see Moonshine Gary and family only to continue down the road to Fort Morgan. You have found yourself back into the pocket of the American South. Beautiful water, light breezes and Skrillex? Take my money.

Baitbucket was unable to pass the Flora-Bama without pulling in for a Bushwacker. Back in the day he would come here just to buy fireworks so he and his cousins could have wars in the mazes of the sea dunes. Pro tip: When engaged in a Roman candle battle, do not seek protection in a fox hole. Famously bad idea and your tears won’t save you.

What you know about tar balls and oil derricks? This year there were no jelly fish although Pablo was still pining for someone to pee on his leg. Forget what you think you know. This is the Redneck Renaissance and the beach rats are taking over.

Visit the Hangout Fest website and like their social media channels on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The etherweb is real. Welcome to the machine. Visit the wook wranglers’ little nooks and crannies on the computer box. You are caught in the portal.

This festival had something for the whole crowd. Pretty girls, day drinkers, fraternity boys, cops with bad shoes. The whole enchilada. It’s a testament to the town of Gulf Shores for being able to pull this all together in the basket of this tourist mecca. The stage hand campground was only two short miles away and easy traveling for the haggard hand who wants to stop by the bar on his way back to the domicile. It’s the stagehand business. Felony convictions, masters degrees and unfinished, homemade hand tattoos enough to go around.

He’d been beaten unconscious with a screw jack for urinating in the VIP pool. The riggers were having a Jihad with the heavy equipment operators to see who could be the biggest douche bags. Alex had been on the hunt for a hippy girl and he found one complete with homemade tattoos and as a bonus her back was covered with transdermal patches that he could turn into Skoal Bandits at his leisure. She wore one for nicotine, one for hangover, the day after, suboxin, fentanyl, ensam, buprenorphine and nitroglycerine. It looked as if the old gypsy woman had been right after all.

Thank you so much to Hangout Fest for including the wranglers in the silly beach fun. There’s nothing like the squeak of bear feet in what could possibly be the softest, whitest sand anywhere. Real men can toss a bait net.

Keep up with the wranglers as we head west to Chillicothe and Summer Camp before heading back into the mountains and Mountain Music Festival in West Virginia. After that it’s the grand three-punch of Bonnaroo, Electric Forest and Peach. See you in the lot. And what did the girl with the green hair say? “If you see me running, you probably should as well.”

#vanlife?

Don’t forget, Alabama hates drugs.