A fantastic new country music festival – the first annual Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion

Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion 2018

For the last twenty years Tommy Alverson has held his annual Family Gathering Music Festival with three days of country music and it was always one of the best music festivals in Texas. But in 2017 Tommy decided that 20 years of running the Festival was enough. You can’t believe how disappointed thousands of Tommy’s fans were – including us, we had attended the last twelve Family Gatherings!

We were excited to hear that Glenn Sanders, a long time Tommy Alverson and country music fan had decided to continue the Family Gathering tradition. According to Glenn: “Just a little over a year ago several of us were talking about how much we were going to miss everything about what Tommy has given us for 20 years as his Family Gathering was coming to an end. None of us wanted to think about giving up the the ‘family atmosphere’ and the opportunity to just relax and enjoy great music with a mature crowd. Somebody said ‘Glenn, why don’t you pick this up and we can all have more good times’. So Glenn said, “let’s do it!” Cheers and hurrahs resounded through Texas as word spread about the first annual Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion.

From my perspective the first Texas Music Reunion was an amazing success and we all cheered when Glenn announced at the end of the festival that there would be a second Texas Music Reunion next year at the same time and same place. Here are just a few reasons why that got us excited, why we loved Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion, and why you should make sure you add this Festival to your next year’s calendar:

• an excellent line-up of Texas country singer songwriters
• a fun, lively, outgoing, friendly, and mature group of music lovers
• a beautiful heavily treed property with several hundred feet of frontage along the Brazos River
• camping that’s close to the music stage and electricity that’s available for an extra price
• BYOB, lawn chairs, and canopies
• food and merchandise vendors with several good options

The Texas Music Reunion was held at Sandlin’s Camp in Nemo and I can hear you asking “where the heck is Nemo?” It’s just a few miles north of Glen Rose and about 40 minutes southeast of Fort Worth. Wow, what an impressive piece of property and a perfect location for a music festival. The property covers several acres with hundreds of feet of frontage along the gently flowing Brazos River. Towering sprawling trees provide plenty of shade and there was ample room for campers to get close to the music or spread out under the trees a little farther from the stage.

We had VIP tickets and camping and our assigned campsite was 50 feet from the Brazos River and 100 yards from the stage – beautiful setting! I hated to leave. The River was cool and refreshing and several people went swimming or floating down the River with a beer and listening to the live music. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

We got to the Reunion on Thursday afternoon, got set up, popped a beer, and played dominos overlooking the river. That evening we drove into Glen Rose to eat at Loco Coyote which had recently been featured on the Texas Day Tripper TV program. The Day Tripper loved the food so we had to try it. Really cool atmosphere and very good BBQ, burgers, and more.

The next morning we got up early and headed to Granbury to play 18 holes of golf at Pecan Plantation Country Club about 25 minutes away. A pleasant surprise – some very interesting and fun holes; very good conditions; and big greens and huge bunkers. Read our review of Pecan Plantation Country Club.

If you’re a golfer, Glen Rose has two great courses at Squaw Valley Golf Course just 10 minutes from Sandlin’s Camp. Use this map to find nearby golf courses.

The Line-up at Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion

We got back from golf just in time to set up our lawn chairs, plop down and pop a beer, scarf down some appetizers, and enjoy the music that started at 5 on Friday. The line-up for Friday included:

• Winner of Hank-FM Crowman Jam Contest
• The Geezerz (Tommy Alverson, Terry Rasor, & Amos Staggs)

• Eleven Hundred Springs
• Thomas Michael Riley
• Jamie Richards

• Walt Wilkins and the Mystiqueros

What a fantastic day of music with a lively fun crowd, cold beer, perfect weather, and some tasty food!

Saturday the music started at 2 and included:

• Songwriter Showcase with Charlie Wright, Rhonda McCullough, and David Byboth
• Dave Thomas & Brett Watts
• Travis Smith & Doug Rose

• Kevin Deal, Houston Marchman & Mark David Manders
• blacktopGYPSY
• Davin James

• Max Stalling
• Deryl Dodd
• Tommy Alverson

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who hated to see the music end on Saturday night. What an outstanding line-up for the first annual Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion!!! All of the fans seemed to enjoy every set and all of the musicians seemed impressed with the venue and the fans. Can’t wait to see the line-up for next year.

The Music Fans at Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion

The fans at this this festival were a large part of what makes me want to come back again for next year’s Reunion. They were a mature, fun, lively, and outgoing group – the majority of which had attended several of Tommy’s Family Gathering for multiple years. It was great seeing a lot of people that we’ve met at previous festivals and meeting lots of new people. This festival truly felt like a big reunion with great music, family, and friends! Click here to see more pictures of the Glenn Sanders’ Texas Music Reunion Fans.

Food Vendors and The Staff

I don’t know about you but after consuming several beers I’m usually starving and the good news is that there were two food vendors to help keep my tummy full and to soak up some of the beer. Nana’s Lunch Box & Sweets served burgers, dogs, nachos, and more and D-N-A BBQ provided some outstanding BBQ, huge delicious stuffed baked potatoes with pulled pork, fried baloney sandwich, and more.

One of the die hard music fans (I forgot his name) towed his huge BBQ cookoff trailer to the Festival, set it up, and started cooking some free food for the fans. There were breakfast tacos and Bloody Marys, brisket, huge beef ribs, shrimp and grits and more. What a generous thing for him to do – thanks!

VIPs had a backstage area that included free beer and water and two dinners of BBQ brisket sandwiches and potato salad one night and fried catfish and french fries the next night – plus really rich and very good brownies! Needless to say I didn’t go hungry this weekend.

In addition to some good food you could get a fantastic back massage, buy a pearl snap shirt, pick up some of the artists merchandise (hats, CDs, tee shirts, koozies, etc.), or pick out a nice piece of jewelry to wear home.

Running a music festival is a huge, time consuming, difficult, and costly endeavor and our thanks go out to Glenn Sanders and all of the staff who made this festival fun for the rest of us. Specifically, our thanks to Gary Newall and Joe Dye who were instrumental in making this festival successful!

Our thanks also go out to the sound and stage crew (like the marines, they are always the first in and last out) – they made the set changes quickly and I can’t remember the last time I was at a festival where you could clearly hear all the vocals and the overall sound was crystal clear. Congratulations to everyone who played a part in Glenn Sanders’ First Annual Texas Music Reunion – and thanks!

Remember that Texas Music Reunion will be the same weekend (the first weekend of October), at the same place, and hopefully with the same weather, great music, and fun people – don’t miss it. See you there!