After three decades, this Iowa band is saying 'goodbye' to the Iowa State Fair

This Saturday, music lovers and Iowa State Fair fanatics will hear the rousing, howling harmonica of Bob Dorr and the Blue Band again fill the northeast corner of the fairgrounds.

It marks the 34th year Dorr and his planned 14-piece outfit will have given Iowans a reason to laugh, dance and celebrate rock ‘n’ roll … and it will be the last.

An Iowa State Fair staple as storied to some as food on a stick, this soundtrack to many a Sky Glider ride plans to perform its last fair gigs at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on the MidAmerican Stage.

The show comes as part of the year-long “last goodbye” tour for the Blue Band, which for 36 years has been fronted by Dorr, an Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Association Hall of Fame member.

For Dorr, hanging up his harmonica reflects the financial burden of performing with a money-losing act. In an era where Spotify playlists and acoustic cover acts take up the stages at local bars, finding the money move his band — typically seven members — and three-person crew across the state has proven difficult.

“How many times have we seen where somebody comes up to the door and says, ‘You want five dollars?’ and there’s seven (musicians) up (on stage) workin’ hours and hours,” Dorr said. “There’s so many places that can’t even afford to charge a cover charge any longer.”

Age — Dorr is age 65 and original Blue Band guitarist Jeff Petersen is age 68 — also played a factor in his decision.

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“The older I’ve gotten the more and more I appreciate the concept of ‘all you really have is your time,’” Dorr said. “It’s really, really difficult for me to go out on a three hour trip because there’s nothing I can think of other than I’m going to spend six hours of my day, sittin’ here in this truck.”

The band dissipating means celebrating it happened in the first place, said Jeff Petersen, the last original member of the Cedar Falls-based group, alongside Dorr.

“I’m trying to be a little more philosophical about it,” Petersen said. “I convinced myself that all things come to an end.”

Despite the financial logic behind leaving the band, an emotional weight lingers. Walking away from a project of three-and-a-half decades amounts to walking a way from a child for Dorr.

He remembers the first Blue Band show, on June 10, 1981, in Dubuque and no follower should doubt he’ll remember the last, scheduled for Jan. 13, 2018, at the Riverside Casino. He says the group’s played an estimated 5,000 gigs.

“Every day for the last 36 years and two months the Blue Band has been my purpose and my reason to get up and persevere and things like that,” Dorr said. “It’s kind of scary in one (hand) and it’s been freeing in another.”

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Months away from the band’s big farewell, Dorr said he plans for the Iowa State Fair show to be a boisterous reunion for past and present players in the Blue Band. He believes the first Blue Band show at the fair happened in 1983; he said others argue it was 1984. He remembers filling a last-minute open slot for the group’s first performance.

From there, the group played more and more fair shows, culminating with playing all 11 days in the 1990s — with the exception of 1996, when the Dorr said he thought “the Blue Band was more important to the fair than we really were.” Regardless, the group returned in ‘97 and hasn’t missed a year since.

“When we started at the fair it was literally board planks over bails of hay (for people) to sit,” he recalled.

Long-time Blue Band fans such as Barb Farrow, of Des Moines, plan to soak in every second of those final sets. Farrow said she began following the Blue Band in the late 1980s and grew to befriend the band since.

The Blue Band plans to play about 75 percent original material, but fans won’t go home without hearing Dorr and Co. deliver a classic cover of “Mustang Sally.”

“(I’ll) be out there dancin’ on the dance floor one more time at the Iowa State Fair ... gettin’ the gravel under my toes,” Farrow said.

Saturday’s show will come and pass; the Blue Band will cease its residency at Iowa’s late summer tradition. But fans need not mourn too heavily. Dorr said he’ll continue to gig alongside Petersen with their duo, The Blue Two.

“I am a gig junkie,” he said. “I need my gig fix every so often. It’s gotta happen.”

If you go:

Catch The Blue Band this Saturday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on the Iowa State Fair MidAmerican Stage.