FLORENCE — Four-year-old Christian Thomas draped his arm around Donnie the bloodhound at the end of the leash that Officer Jason Johnson held loosely in his hand.
Four-year-old Christian Thomas found a friend in Donnie, an 8-year-old bloodhound assigned to the Arizona Department of Corrections. Her handler, Officer Jason Johnson, said the dog assists with tracking people.
Donnie seemed pretty used to the attention and didn't seem to mind when Christian squeezed a little harder Thursday afternoon.
"He loves dogs," his aunt, Monique Chavez, said as the boy flipped his sunglasses down and gave Johnson's Department of Corrections canine partner one last hug.
Right behind Christian, another boy and another photo opp at Country Thunder on opening day. Johnson and Donnie knew the drill, one they will be repeating throughout the four-day festival that runs through Sunday.
Fans of Trace Adkins put cowboy hats and ball caps on the catwalk in hopes the country singer would stop and sign his autograph. He didn't.
Just around the corner in the food court area, Tom Montoya and his crew were minding the open flames of their grill loaded down with cobs of corn and giant turkey legs roasting and spitting as they turned crispy brown.
Thursday was the third time Brett Eldredge has played Country Thunder in Florence. Two of those times, he headlined.
Tommy Montoya will sell about 800 smoked turkey legs throughout the weekend. The Casa Grande resident, who also has a burger stand at Country Thunder, expects he will serve between 10,000 and 12,000 people over the four days.
In the backdrop, you could hear San Tan Valley resident Shyla Cluff trying to lure customers to her boss's hot dog stand: "Hot dogs! Jumbo corndogs! Fresh squeezed lemonade!" she shouted as coworker Jaslynn Savage looked out at the fairly empty food court. But Montoya was not worried; just give it time, he said. By the end of the weekend, the veteran vendor — this is the Casa Grande resident's eighth Country Thunder festival — expects to have sold 400 to 500 turkey legs and served some 10,000 to 12,000 country music fans.
For an opening night, Country Thunder on Thursday night was rocking, and headliner Brett Eldredge deserves much of the credit.
He has a couple other concepts in the food court including a burger stand that sells sloppy good cheeseburgers and fries, and for 12 to 14 hours each day through Sunday, he'll be at the festival "making money and watching the crazy show."
Only some of that show will be on stage; much of it will pass right in front of him in the food court and vendors area tucked away in a corner of the sprawling grounds.
The vendors selling festival T-shirts and pickup trucks or promoting all sorts of causes from the Arizona Club that supports law enforcement — the reason Donnie and Johnson were there Thursday — to the legal-eagle site myazlawyers.com that offered free root beer if you liked them on Facebook were momentary distractions.
The real action was on the enormous Country Thunder stage, which will see some of country's biggest stars over the weekend including Sunday night headliner Chris Stapleton.
On opening night Thursday, an estimated 30,000 people packed in to see veteran country singer Trace Adkins and rising star Brett Eldredge kick things off.
From the crowd's piercing screams, the pair was a fine choice to shatter the notion that opening day should be the calm before the country storm.
Adkins, at 6-foot 6 the tallest person who will grace the Country Thunder stage this year, might not have the hits-power of his earlier days, but the 24-year veteran proved he can still get the crowd going.
Along the catwalk, dozens of fans held out cowboy hats and ball caps with Sharpies at the ready in hopes of getting his attention. They failed; Adkins was not there to sign autographs. He was there to show us that his deeply nuanced, slightly twangy baritone is no worse for the wear of years of singing songs that can still wring a tear out of lamenting that "You're Gonna Miss This" or make you holler when he commends a woman's "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk."
Adkins had a lot of ground to cover, from his early single "Songs About Me" to one of his latest "Still A Soldier." He shimmied and shook his way through the grinding "Hot Mama" and "I Left Something Turned On At Home" and got downright snarky on his "A**hole Song," which took unapologetic broad swipes at his buddy Blake Shelton, before ending his 90-minute show with a cover of Gregg Allman's "I'm No Angel."
Eldredge, making his third Country Thunder appearance in his nearly 10-year career, bounded on stage with a drink in hand. Anyone wondering what kind of show he was putting on got the message: Welcome to the party.
For 90 minutes, Eldredge strutted along the catwalk or skipped from one side of the stage to the other extolling the value of being "Drunk on Your Love" or "The Reason" he called drunk. He tugged at our hearts with "Raymond," an homage to his grandmother in her waning days when she mistook him for his father, and showed us how he'd finally found something he's good at.
He told the crowd he wasn't one to ask people to turn on their phone flashlights, but he figured under the blanket of a near starless night in Florence with 30,000 people and their phones, it would add a nice effect to his ballad "Mean to Me" and the words "if I could be the fire in your firefly."
He was right. The blanket of twinkling lights looked like a sky full of fireflys.
Country Thunder continues Friday with headliner Tim McGraw and veteran Texas crooner Clay Walker.
