Being a celebrity doesn’t spare you from the special hell that is music festival alcohol rules, as Tom Hanks discovered at the Stagecoach country music festival.
Hanks was at the festival to support his wife Rita Wilson, who was one of the performers. She posted a photograph of herself with Hanks (above) on Instagram with the caption: “When you “open” for #lynardskynyrd at @stagecoach What is my life?!?!?!”
Hanks told Ellen DeGeneres this week that he had an incredibly frustrating time when he tried to buy a beer.
“I wanted to have a nice tasty bucket of suds,” he said. “So I went to the place where you get the beer from and there were four ladies who were serving it up and I stood up and I said ‘Pull me a draw!’ And they said, ‘We can’t because your ID has not been verified’.”
Confused, Hanks responded: “‘It says ‘Beer For Sale’ here and I’ve come to ask for a beer and you’re not going to give me one because, what, you think I’m underage?!’”
“I said ‘I’m 62 years old and you know my name so I think I should be able to get a beer,’” he continued. “They said, ‘No, you have to go — somewhere over there is a stand where you give them your ID and you verify that you’re old enough to have a beer.’”
Hanks even tried to bribe the bartenders.
“I must credit these ladies: they did not cave!” he said. “I was offering them tickets to stuff… I said, ‘You will come to the Toy Story premiere with me! Just go like that with a red solo cup underneath and let me walk away with a beer!’ And they would not allow it.”
“I argued with them for 20 minutes,” he continued. “I said, ‘Honestly, do you not have eyes? Explain this to me!’ It scared them a little bit but they were just absolutely resolute.
“Eventually a guy came over about a half hour later… and he gave me a bracelet and then guess what I did? I chugged me a brewski.”
