Zac Brown Band rocks FEQ fans with country hits and covers
Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
peterblack@qctonline.com
Even if you were not one of the thousands of fans of the Zac Brown Band (ZBB) who showed up for their Festival d’Été de Québec show July 11, there might have been something for you in their setlist.
Call them one of the world’s best bar bands if you will, but the nine-member Georgia- based group played no less than six covers of other artists’ tunes in their 18-song set. Not that anyone was complaining. In what was FEQ’s nominal country night, the venerable band revved up a crowd that rivalled in size, if not enthusiasm, the memorable appearance at the 2022 show of compatriot Luke Combs.
They wore trucker caps and cowboy boots, but, true to the “new country” genre, ZBB’s music is an amalgam of pop and rock. They actually bill themselves as a “Southern rock” band.
Hence, there was no shame or incongruity in a set that featured a mash-up of Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al” with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” with Caroline Jones, multi- instrumentalist, solo artist and lone woman in the band, contributing the high notes for the kumbaya favourite.
Another band stand-out was fiddle player Jimmy De Martini, who nearly set his instrument on fire with a rendition of the Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Adding to the diversity of the cover tunes were the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black,” Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” and Van Morrison’s ethereal “Into the Mystic.”
The energetic, ever-smiling 46-year-old frontman Brown introduced a new song he hopes will become a summer hit, “Tied Up,” an upbeat tribute to the boating life, complete with a video of bikinis and beaches.
Though his interaction with the captivated crowd was lim- ited, Brown did get an appreciative roar when he said early on in the 90-minute show (with two encores): “Man, it is feeling good here tonight.”
Fans seeking more authentic country and western music would not have been disappointed with the performance of Charley Crockett, a Texan with a hard-luck childhood and rough-and-tumble life that gives his tunes an undeniable authenticity.
With 12 albums under his belt buckle and several American Music Awards, Crockett featured several songs from his latest recording, $10 Cowboy, as well as a few covers, notably Waylon Jennings’ “Dollar a Day.”
Switching from acoustic to electric guitar and backed by a crack band in matching cowboy shirts, Crockett held his own in the face of a restless crowd on a brisk but mercifully rainless evening.
He offered up a few words in French, but perhaps he could have said more, given that he said in English he had spent some time busking in the streets of Paris.
The show opened with a competent but somewhat listless performance by Morgan Wade, whose proliferation of tattoos and powerful raspy vocals caught the attention of some of the gathering crowd.
She finished her 40-minute set with a tender but hard-driving hybrid of 80s hits, The Outfields’ “Your Love” and Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl.”