I must admit my blog posts this summer have been rather few and far between. Over the last few years I’ve spent the summer months around home in Bozeman where the weather is better than almost everywhere else and to avoid crowds in traveling.  Good weather means good hiking, but I’ve neglected the outdoors this season without any really good reason.  Yeah, I’ve been Republicanizing – working with my local party organization and candidates toward the November election.  Nevertheless, I am a bit ashamed that I haven’t climbed more mountains or explored a new part of the state this summer.

However, I did venture out in town a few times for events. On Thursday evenings during summer, Main Street in downtown Bozeman is closed for ‘Music on Main’, a band performance with good line up of food trucks to feed the crowd.  I had only been once before, back in 2019 when I first arrived in Montana.  Honestly, most of the musical acts don’t appeal much to me.  Being a college town, there’s a lot of local funk, while I prefer country or at least some classic rock covers. In early August this summer, though, one of the acts was Northfork Crossing, a bluegrass band worthy of heading into town for a few hours.  They were OK, but I have to admit that downtown Bozeman is kind of hostile territory.  The band may be country, but the crowd in attendance is still made up to a large degree of college town weirdos.  Honestly, things seem to me to have gone downhill since the last time I attended five years ago on a similarly sunny warm night for Wyoming country crooner Tris Munsick.

I get together a few times a year for hiking or crowd pleasers with my local buddy Jeff. Although he works for the university, he’s from a small town in western South Dakota and fully into the country way of life.  So I suggested a concert to him.  Valley View Rodeo in Bozeman is something relatively new.  It takes place mostly on Thursday nights through the summer in Bozeman and is not part of the professional rodeo circuit. When I first went last year, I expected it to be something tourist -oriented, but it’s not. It’s a legitimate rodeo, although there seem to be highschoolers in some events, and they even let women ride mini “bulls”. This year, though, some of the rodeos were followed by country concerts, Ned Ledoux and Chancey Williams on consecutive nights (Thurs and Fri) at the end of August.

I am actually quite a fan of Chancey Williams, especially after seeing him two years ago at Central Montana Fair in Lewistown two summers ago. Jeff had also seen him perform somewhere, so we decided to go the night of the Ned LeDoux concert.  The two are actually connected and Wyoming natives. Ned LeDoux is the son of the more famous Chris LeDoux, a famous singer in the 1980s and 1990s who I saw in concert at Cheyenne Frontier Days when I lived there in the late 1990s. Chris LeDoux and Chancey Williams have something in common. They are the only two people to have been at Cheyenne Frontier Days both as rodeo cowboys and as evening show performers.

The rodeo went well. After it was over, the crowd was allowed down into the dirt in the arena right below the stage.  We pushed our way to the front, which actually didn’t take much effort.  We were literally a few feet from the stage.  Where else can you be so close to performers of fairly significant status. My carpenter friend Joe told me that Ned LeDoux sounds just like his dad.  I’m not quite sure on that. Ned certainly sang some of his father’s top songs, as well as some of his own, but I wouldn’t say he was a showman of quite the same caliber or voice.  Chancey Williams, the next night’s show, was actually present and joined Ned on stage.  I was very tempted to go again the next night for Chancey but had an obligation that kept me from making it.  Maybe next time Chancey is in town!