Brandy McDonnellThe Oklahoman
- Cross Canadian Ragweed, an influential Red Dirt quartet, will play their first full concerts together in 15 years April 10-13 at Oklahoma State University.
- The four sold-out shows, co-headlined with fellow Oklahoma Red Dirt stars Turnpike Troubadours, are the first concerts at Boone Pickens Stadium since it was rededicated in 2009.
- The band announced their reunion in October and quickly added shows due to overwhelming demand.
- The reunion took on even more meaning for the band after the death of drummer Randy Ragsdale's son, JC, in November.
Watching lead singer and guitarist Cody Canada adjust the distance between his mic stand and pedalboard in the snug rehearsal studio, drummer Randy Ragsdale jokes, "We just need to get you a lavalier mic."
"Yeah," guitarist Grady Cross agrees with a grin, while bassist Jeremy Plato playfully encourages the frontman to get a headset mic instead of a clip-on and "go full Garth."
"I'm already gonna be crying, guys," Canada quips back, also referencing the wireless mic-wearing, heart-on-his-sleeve music icon who came of age in the same Oklahoma college town as Ragweed.
As they start working through the set list labeled "Stillwater Night #1" — yes, that's a secret, too — the years, for the most part, seem to fall away for the recently reunited Red Dirt rockers, who find a familiar groove within the first few familiar songs.
"It is shaping up. I thought of a goal for us to try and sound as though we'd never stopped — and I think we're inching towards that, and at a pretty good pace," Plato told The Oklahoman during a break in the once-broken band's late February rehearsals.
"Honestly, it wasn't as rusty as I thought it was going to be. ... We hadn't done anything together in 15 years, and we really fell right back into it. And today is just even better," Canada added. "Everybody's extremely happy to be around each other, and everybody's happy to play. And we're all older now, so there's different goals."
'One of those seminal moments:' Cross Canadian Ragweed's reunion is believed to be Oklahoma's biggest concert event ever
In the six months since they announced they were putting the band back together, the long-hoped for Cross Canadian Ragweed reunion has continually smashed goals so lofty that the group's members likely never would have thought to set them in the first place.The influential Red Dirt quartet will officially reconvene to play their first full concerts together in a decade and a half — and their first stadium shows ever — April 10-13 at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, the birthplace of Red Dirt music and the launching pad for one of the homegrown genre's foremost standard bearers.
The four sold-out "Boys from Oklahoma" shows, which Ragweed is co-headlining with fellow Oklahoma Red Dirt stars Turnpike Troubadours, are the first concerts at Boone Pickens Stadium since the home of OSU football was rededicated in 2009 after a dramatic $286 million renovation.
With the band's four-night homecoming residency, Ragweed ― not one of Oklahoma's music superstars like Reba McEntire, Blake Shelton or the aforementioned OSU alumnus Garth Brooks, one of the best-selling solo artists in U.S. history ― has become the main draw at what's believed to be the state's biggest concert event ever.
"This is going to be the biggest ticketed event in the history of the state of Oklahoma. ... You've got four stadium shows at 45,000 a piece. So, that's, what, 180,000 tickets sold, and it could have been way more," said OSU Athletics spokesman Gavin Lang.
"This really has a chance to be one of those seminal moments."
