Episode 059 - Zac Brown Band Concert Review

This week, I'm reviewing the Zac Brown Band concert at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT on April 27th, 2025. I'll share my history with the band starting back in 2015, and how their their live shows have maintained their consistency over the years.

Whether you're a die-hard ZBB fan or just know their hits, I continue my efforts to share insights and clips from the show so that you’ll feel like you were there. Please join us for our review of the Zac Brown Band concert, this week on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!

00:55 Discovering Zac Brown Band

01:39 The Concert Venue Experience

03:19 Zac Brown Band Takes the Stage

04:58 Covers and Originals: A Balanced Setlist

19:07 Encore and Final Thoughts

24:01 Conclusion and Sign-Off

Podcast Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4CiUtHA6v7jctNJCQr3B1a?si=17975e0e7d0d4462

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gadd, and this week I've got another concert review for you. I went to see the Zac Brown Band at the Arena at Mohegan Sun, which is a casino in Connecticut where he and his longtime band played a 21 song set that lasted almost two and a half hours, filled with great ZBB songs and a bunch of expertly delivered covers. I've seen this band four times over the past 10 years, and so I'm a fan for sure, and I'll tell you all about the show and this arena that I had never been to. So please stick around for my Zac Brown Band concert review coming up right now. I got turned onto the Zac Brown Band back in 2015 when my friends Rod and Christine invited me to go see them at CitiField in Queens. And I said yes, despite not knowing really anything about them. I had never heard their two big early hits, which were Toes or Chicken Fried. And I wasn't really a big fan of country music, but I trusted my guy Rod, who is a hard Rock fan, and he loved this band, so Off we went. Side note, you can learn more about Rod in episode eight of this podcast, which came out last May. Anyway, that show ended up being amazing. And the album they were supporting on that year's tour, which was called Jekyll and Hyde was a great mix of country rock and pop music that was way more accessible than I had expected. And that was it. I was a fan right there. And then. All the previous times I'd seen this band were at CitiField, which is a baseball stadium in Queens, New York. So going up to Mohegan Sun, a Native American casino, opened almost 30 years ago was kind of a new experience for me. I had never seen a show there. I live about an hour and a half away from the place, and decided to drive home after the show rather than stay overnight at the hotel. The arena where they host concerts is in the casino complex, right in the center, and it's also the home arena of the Connecticut Sun, which is A-W-N-B-A team. It's about a 10,000 seat place, so not big by arena standards. It was easy in and I. Easy out. There weren't really any bad seats though, because we were sitting in the upper level on the side. My video has occasional arms and hands popping up into the frame. I think you won't be too distracted by that though. I hope not. Anyway, before the show, we met up with two of my friends from high school who were pre-gaming at one of the bars in the casino. It was great seeing you both Stacy and Jill. And then another friend from high school, Annie, was sitting just in front of us, which we arranged when we bought the tickets at the same time. So it was like old home week for me at the show. We got into the arena in the middle of the Opening Act set. The opening act was a band called Gaelic Storm, which I had never heard of before. They're an American band from California with eight or nine albums going back to the mid 1990s. So respect to them. They play Celtic inspired rock and folk music, and seemed to be a mix of originals and traditional songs. They weren't really my thing, but it was fun to see them playing their asses off, working the crowd, expressing their appreciation for being there. They definitely came off as genuine, down to earth and appreciative of the opportunity they were getting. Then after a short break, Zac Brown hit the stage at about 10 after eight. The band opened with Same Boat from the 2021 album, The Comeback, and the crowd was very welcoming. Same Boat rolled into Toes, the band's second number one country hit from their debut album. The Foundation. The song is easily one of ZBB's most popular songs with a sing-along chorus that's a direct descendant of Jimmy Buffett's greatest songs, and the crowd was way into it. One of the things that you should expect at any Zac Brown Band show is cover songs and not just one or two. It's the one thing that seems to split the fan base at all that I'm aware of.'cause they have diehard fans, again, me among them. But the band is extremely talented. Very talented, and I've seen them cover all kinds of songs from Jimmy Buffett's songs to classic rock songs, pop music, heavy metal. Dance music, they can cover just about anything, but as their career progresses, they have so many good original songs that some fans would rather hear more originals and fewer covers. I'm somewhere in between. I like it all, but at this show, there were enough of my favorite ZBB songs that they didn't play, that I wouldn't have minded if they had skipped some of the covers. And yet when they went into Devil Went Down to Georgia as their third song of the night, it was great. This track is a particularly good fit for the band, being that it's a country song or a country rock song, but still it prominently features a fiddle given that their fiddle player, Jimmy d Martini, is extremely talented and this gave him a chance to really go off. Here's a little bit of that one. Came across as a, you play good, fiddle. They followed up, The Devil Went Down to Georgia with My Kind of Medicine from their 2024 ep, No Wake Zone, which is a good but not great tune. And then they went right into The Chain, a Fleetwood Mac cover, and this was the first time that it really became apparent that the Zac Brown Band recently added their first female band mate. Her name is Carolyn Jones. Carolyn had opened shows for ZBB and for Jimmy Buffett in the 20 teens, and as of 2022, she's become a full band member. She was an up and coming country music star prior to that and still has a solo career, but she's now a full-time member of Zac's band, and I think her inclusion adds a great new layer for their sound. You can hear her on The Chain singing Stevie Nicks' parts. After The Chain, they went into one of my favorite of their original ballads, Free, which they usually pair with Van Morrison's into The Mystic, and that's my favorite Van Morrison song. They did those two together on this night and they sound excellent together. Here's a little bit of that And. Now if you're counting, that's three covers among the first seven songs, which is a lot, even if they fit in the set list seamlessly. From there, they went into three song medley of island related buffet inspired songs, starting with The Island Song into Where the Boat Leaves From. Finishing with Two Blue Chairs in You all good, all with the same general vibe. But all fun coming out of that, they played my personal favorite, Zac Brown song, Homegrown, which was the lead single from the 2015 Jekyll and Hyde album. It's a great song. That's kind of a summary of everything that the Zac Brown Band sings about mixed up in one song. It's about being satisfied with the things you have as long as you have people around you that love you and it's got a great fiddle part featured predominantly, while also having a kind of pop rock vibe blending all of the band's core influences together in a great way. I don't know if you can tell from the videos, but Zac himself is really slimmed down. He looked great, really fit, which is good to see because the road can be rough on a performer and I want him around for a long time. So whatever you're having, Zac, I. I'll have some too. They did a few more songs and then did an acoustic breakdown in the middle of the stage where the whole band gathered close and played a few acoustic newer tunes Out In the Middle and Wild Palomino. After that, they pulled another cover. This one featuring Carolyn Jones on the late 1980s. one hit wonder by Alannah Miles Black Velvet man. Did Carolyn knock it out of the park even if it seemed not to fit into the rest of the set that well? You can see for yourself. She's really killing it. Black Velvet was followed by my other favorite Zac Brown Band song Day of the Dead, and that one comes from the EP that Dave Grohl produced for the band, which they called the Grohl Sessions. This one used to be their major mid set piece complete with significant video production made up of Mexican sugar skulls flying around the screens. Given that we were in a 10,000 seat arena and not a 50,000 seat stadium, the screens were smaller, but the song retains. All of its excitement and its drama for me, and here's some of that. One, They followed that with another Van Morrison song, Brown-Eyed Girl, which I really didn't understand them playing. It's one of the most overplayed cover songs of all time amongst cover bands. When I played in a cover band, we had a firm, no Brown-Eyed Girl Rule, and I was kind of underwhelmed by this version as well. It's just so overplayed. Anyway, they followed that with Beautiful Drug from the Jekyll and Hyde album, after which they moved into their big hits wrapping up the main set. The first of those was Chicken Fried. The band's first ever hit, which I featured on last week's July 4th Top 10 list episode. Here's a little bit of Chicken Fried from the show. That was followed by one of my other favorite ballads from the band Colder Weather, which they combined with a cover of the Eagles Take It to the Limit, and then they finished off with Knee Deep. Their most Jimmy Buffett inspired, original, so much so that Buffett sang on it with Zac and the original recording on the Band's second album, You Get What You Give back. In 2010, the performance included a video of Jimmy singing his part. It takes on added impact since Jimmy passed away in 2023 and the whole audience was singing along. My friend Annie is quite the parrot head. And that really warmed her heart. She was very emotional during that. I tried to capture the video of Jimmy singing, but the people to the left of me kept swinging their hands around and that got in the way it, that happens at a Zac Brown Band concert. I left it in, as you can still get a peek of Jimmy Buffett before the band goes back into the chorus. That was it for the main set. And after a brief break, the band came out as Zac asked us if we had time for a couple of more. We sure did. And with that, the stage started filling with smoke and weird noises, and that indicated we are getting Michael Jackson's Thriller as encore song number one. For a. You. After that Jimmy D Martini stepped up to the mic and the band did a strong cover of the Beastie Boys Sabotage, which I had heard before, retained all of its fun. Check this out. With that, the band was done and we were let out into the casino. We drove the 90 minutes or so home basking in the joy of another Zac Brown Band concert. There really was a crowd pleaser. The only criticism I have is that they played too many covers for my taste. My taste only. They played eight and all. And as I mentioned earlier, for a band that's racked up so many good songs of their own, I would've rather heard more of those in lieu of some of the cover songs specifically for me at least, songs like Sweet Annie, Real Thing, Remedy. Whiskey's Gone Goodbye In Her Eyes. Different Kind of Fine, Tomorrow Never Comes. Uncaged are just some of the songs I would've loved to have heard. Highway 20 rides another one. And if they're gonna do covers, I would've preferred the two that they released on their own. Ray Lamont's Jolene or Jason Isbell's Dress Blues. That one is one of my favorite songs of all time, but that's a minor quibble. The show is as good as ever in a smaller indoor arena, and this band just sounds amazing. Live I. When you get a chance to go see them, please try them out and then let me know what you think. I believe they'll be on NBC's morning show Today on July 25th, uh, playing out in Rockefeller Center. So try to check that out. And with that, that's it for this week's episode. Thank you for joining me. I'll be back next Tuesday, and if you like what you heard today, I'd appreciate it if you would like. And either subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about each new episode, and please tell your friends. Also a reminder that I release a playlist for every episode. So look for the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast Playlist on Spotify every week this week, featuring all 21 songs from the set list of the show that I saw, plus the others, Zac Brown Band songs that I mentioned here today. So please check that out. Additionally, I wanna know what you think. Please leave me a comment. I'll try to respond to them all. The Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your host, Alex Gadd and, until next time, remember that life is short, so get those concert tickets.