were flying as fast as the guitars were being swapped out! I want to stop right here and give a special
shout-out and a heartfelt thank you to David “Doc” Oswalt and the entire road crew. There is not a harder working, more friendly group of people on the road with any band, and they deserve our gratitude for the work they do to make the show come off without a hitch. I tend to get lost in the music, so keeping up with set lists has never been my strong suit, but the band played a great mix of songs off all the records. They featured a new song Thursday night, and if it’s any indication of what’s to come this could be the best release from the band yet. The set seemed to fly by, and before I knew it the first of my two nights was over. It was time to brave the cold and get home to sleep a few hours before working and doing it all over again. The set list, as best I can remember, fea-
tured “Leave a Scar,” “Pretty Little Lie,” “Rock and Roll Again,” Sanctified Woman,” “Let a Sleeping Dog Lie,” “Lucky as a 7,” “Whippoorwill, “Up in Smoke,” “Aint got the Blues,” “One Horse Town,” “Holding All the Roses,” “Aint Much Left of Me,” and I know some others I failed to list. It was a great night with good people filled with great music and I could not wait to see what night two had in store. Now I have to back up just a little bit.
When I first heard about this two-night run, my plan was for my favorite concert partner, my son Steven, to do both shows with me for some father-son bonding time. I had put off buying tickets to make sure his schedule ( he is a senior in college) was doable, and that he could miss class on Friday. The day he let me know was also the day the Friday show listed as sold out, so you can imagine my horror in thinking that not only was I going to miss the show, but also miss my father-son time as well. Steven has been my concert companion since he was 6-years-old, and we have gone together to many great shows by some great
bands, but Blackberry Smoke is the first band that we both discovered at the same time, and we did our first Smoke show in Athens Geor- gia a couple of years ago. I knew he would be disappointed, and so was I. But as fate would have it, my best friend and my brother from another mother who lets me help him out with this amazing musical magazine of his called to tell me he had just got done inter- viewing my favorite singer for the new cover story for KUDZOO, and had hooked me up with two tickets to the show on Friday night so I could review it. I was ecstatic with excite- ment and cannot say “thank you” enough to both Michael Buffalo and Charlie for the hook up.
Friday night was a sold-out show, and man
the place was packed to the hilt, and full of energy. Brother Hawk did another fine job of warming the crowd up. I made my way to the pit in an attempt to
get some pictures to go along with this re- view, and seeing the show from that vantage point is totally unique. My photo pass was a 3-song pit pass so after the third song I switched hats from reporter to just another brother enjoying the show. I could only get about a foot outside the rail and ended up standing right there for the rest of the show. I love that position right next to the speak-
ers where you can feel the music. This van- tage point also allowed me to watch Paul and Charlie as they played off of each other. The crowd was in full swing and I swear all Char- lie has to do is start a song and the crowd will finish singing it for him, and the look on his face is so special. This band is not just a group of players who happened to come together but more like a musical family. And they allow their fans to be part of that family. I be- lieve that’s the reason they have achieved so much in a time when classic rock is all you hear on FM rock radio. The set started with “Fire in the Hole” and even featured an old song, “Lessons in a Bottle” - another of my fa- vorites I had not heard live before. The crowd
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