Last year, when the blues rock band Midstokke played Buffalo Chip, frontman Steve Antonsen pulled a couple of women on stage.
He didn’t know the legal code of South Dakota. Really, the Bothell resident was new to the whole biker rally concept.
“They were dancing, and started taking their clothes off,” he said. “I didn’t know it was illegal to do that (on stage) in South Dakota, so the sound guy had to run up and throw them off.”
This year, when the band returns to one of the world’s largest biker rallies next week, the guys will be up to speed.
Technically, Midstokke are performing at Buffalo Chip. The event is associated with the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, but the two aren’t exactly the same. The rally, held by the City of Sturgis from Aug. 4 to 10, began in 1938. It brings about 500,000 people to southwestern South Dakota, 90 miles from the Badlands, nearly doubling the state’s population of 755,000.
“A historic event has a different kind of draw to it,” Pepper Massey, the rally director for the City of Sturgis, said, explaining the appeal. “It’s built up over the years. There’s a mystique about it.”
Buffalo Chip, an outgrowth of the rally, began in 1982. Its organizers are cagey about attendance figures at the privately run festival, which begins with early arrival days on Monday and runs through Aug. 10. Spokesman Michael Sanborn said the event attracts enough people to make it “the third largest city in South Dakota on those days,” which would mean it draws more than 24,700, the population of Aberdeen.
Named for the campground where it takes place, Buffalo Chip acts as a wild cousin to Sturgis’ more restrained shenanigans. Buffalo Chip touts bikini contests and oil wrestlers. Children require a parental consent form to attend.
“It’s an adult party,” Sanborn said. “It doesn’t get particularly crazy, but we serve beer and we serve liquor, and we’re not interested in having a lot of kids there.”
Sex? Booze? Why, that sounds like a rock ‘n’ roll show. Sure enough, along with oiled women and rumbling Harley Davidsons, Buffalo Chip builds itself around hard rock. This year’s lineup includes Kid Rock, ZZ Top and, yes, Midstokke.
“Sturgis is best described as Burning Man meets Woodstock,” Antonsen, 27, said. “I saw so many very, very quote ‘outgoing’ people. I saw a lot of naked breasts, a lot of middle-aged people cutting loose.”
Antonsen said he had never heard of the Sturgis rally before his band competed in a Marysville contest. The prize was a spot on the 2007 bill, and Midstokke won. While at the festival, an organizer caught two of the group’s sets, and asked them back this year and in 2009 under a paid contract.
For the group, whose five members still work day jobs delivering legal papers, at Blockbuster and in food service, it’s a huge break, easily their biggest in 41/2 years.
Now, Midstokke is preparing to take the stage again. They haven’t seen call sheets yet, so they don’t know if they will play more than the four night shows they performed last year.
“We’re expecting more, but we’re kind of at the whims of the management,” he said. “We just want to play as much as we can.”
The guys leave Wednesday, caravanning with friends in a van, car and truck. Sadly, they won’t have a motorcycle among them.
“I’d like to get a bike eventually,” Antonsen said, “but I don’t have the money.”
Not yet, at least.
Andy Rathbun, Herald Writer, arathbun@heraldnet.com, 425-339-3455
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