The Castellows - Ways To Go, Great NY State Fair, Empower Amphitheatre, Syracuse, NY, Aug. 21, 2025

EMPOWER FCU AMPHITHEATER AT LAKEVIEW
The Great New York State Fair was a great for this ‪@thecastellows‬ show, opening for Thomas Rhett. The Empower FCU Amphitheatre at Lakeside is a nice venue, similar to our Budweiser Stage here in Toronto with a covered seated area and a lawn seating area beyond it. The weather was great for everyone - dry and not too hot. It was chilly by the evening and so my new Castellows merch - the grey hoodie !!! - came in handy by the end of the night. I also bought a brown version at the Austin show so I'm all ready for Canadian winter :)

This song, Ways To Go, has been the opening number for most of the shows I've seen since 2024 starting from the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor in March to Jordan, NY in August. They switched to Place To Leave later in the year. I think (just a guess) that with a short Thomas Rhett opening set they don't want to change guitars with the opening tuning Ellie guitar in Place To Leave at the start and want to keep the momentum going, right? I heard them play it a lot before the official release of that song. In Austin they just reworked No.7 Road as the opener, adding a rockin' instrumental intro (Blake on that new Gretch), Brad thumping those skins and then the ladies came out and they STARTED with the No.7 Road CHORUS !!! It worked so well - George Martin got The Beatles to put the chorus at the front of Can't Buy Me Love too. Anyway you slice it it is heaven :)