This year's Q97FM Country Concert features the music of popular country band Sawyer Brown.
Dirt roads, small towns, tiny moments — that's the territory claimed by the five musicians from Apopka, Fla., who've played over 3,500 shows over the past 23 years. Along the way they've garnered gold and platinum albums and amassed a string of hits and made a name as the musical spokesband for folks from the small towns of middle America.
Thinking back on the band's early years, bassist Jim Scholten said "It was a different time. People thought we were too different, too outside the box... and it took a lot to get us happening. But we were about playing, five sets a night anywhere they'd let us, until 'Star Search' happened. Even then, we were signed out of L.A. But we knew one thing: We knew that the people, especially the country music fans, loved what we were doing."
According to the band's Web site history, they auditioned for "Star Search" just to get a video to send to prospective booking agents. Then they went on to win the whole thing.
Drummer Joe Smyth thinks he knows the secret to the band's success: "The energy onstage is what keeps the fans coming back — and their energy is part of what keeps us rocking so hard. And we only rock harder as the night goes on. For us, it's like the more we play, the harder they push us and the better it feels. After an hour and a half, we're slamming harder than when we hit the stage, and it just feels incredible."
Mark Miller, the band's soft-spoken frontsman, sees a connection to the way the band works and his Pentecostal upbringing: "You have no idea — people look at me offstage, and think it's an act. But that's how me and my brother were raised. Be good, do right, but when you get to church, you let it go. People talk about my dancing...well, where we went to church, that's what people did when the music was pumping. And lemme tell you: That music got goin' ."
Miller attributes the band's distinctive sound to the music he grew up with: The Jackson 5, the intricate harmonic arrangements of the Beatles and the Beachboys.
When they put the band together, they named it Sawyer Brown, hoping people might think they were hiring a single person.
And they worked wherever they could: Honky tonks, Holiday Inns, roadhouses and Elks lodges. Thirty sets a week.
And it's all paid off as Sawyer Brown enjoys one of the longest runs in the history of country music and a song list that's become part of the American consciousness.
And their goal at each concert is pretty much what it was when they started out: "It took me a little while to totally let go onstage," Miller said. "And there was a time when I thought about not being so wild out there, but I saw how much the crowd wanted to do that thing, too. So we do it together; we give America a license to let their hair down, scream a little, dance if they want to."
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This year's Q97FM Country Concert features the music of popular country band Sawyer Brown.
Dirt roads, small towns, tiny moments — that's the territory claimed by the five musicians from Apopka, Fla., who've played over 3,500 shows over the past 23 years. Along the way they've garnered gold and platinum albums and amassed a string of hits and made a name as the musical spokesband for folks from the small towns of middle America.
Thinking back on the band's early years, bassist Jim Scholten said "It was a different time. People thought we were too different, too outside the box... and it took a lot to get us happening. But we were about playing, five sets a night anywhere they'd let us, until 'Star Search' happened. Even then, we were signed out of L.A. But we knew one thing: We knew that the people, especially the country music fans, loved what we were doing."
According to the band's Web site history, they auditioned for "Star Search" just to get a video to send to prospective booking agents. Then they went on to win the whole thing.
Drummer Joe Smyth thinks he knows the secret to the band's success: "The energy onstage is what keeps the fans coming back — and their energy is part of what keeps us rocking so hard. And we only rock harder as the night goes on. For us, it's like the more we play, the harder they push us and the better it feels. After an hour and a half, we're slamming harder than when we hit the stage, and it just feels incredible."
Mark Miller, the band's soft-spoken frontsman, sees a connection to the way the band works and his Pentecostal upbringing: "You have no idea — people look at me offstage, and think it's an act. But that's how me and my brother were raised. Be good, do right, but when you get to church, you let it go. People talk about my dancing...well, where we went to church, that's what people did when the music was pumping. And lemme tell you: That music got goin' ."
Miller attributes the band's distinctive sound to the music he grew up with: The Jackson 5, the intricate harmonic arrangements of the Beatles and the Beachboys.
When they put the band together, they named it Sawyer Brown, hoping people might think they were hiring a single person.
And they worked wherever they could: Honky tonks, Holiday Inns, roadhouses and Elks lodges. Thirty sets a week.
And it's all paid off as Sawyer Brown enjoys one of the longest runs in the history of country music and a song list that's become part of the American consciousness.
And their goal at each concert is pretty much what it was when they started out: "It took me a little while to totally let go onstage," Miller said. "And there was a time when I thought about not being so wild out there, but I saw how much the crowd wanted to do that thing, too. So we do it together; we give America a license to let their hair down, scream a little, dance if they want to."
Let's put on a show
Christa Roy, Dodge City market manager for Q97, is in charge of organizing the huge effort required to put on a show of this size.
"We couldn't do it without the high school football team and their coaches," Roy said in a phone interview with the Globe Thursday. "They're my angels."
Every year the team sets the stage, sets the lights and sound and sets up chairs for the concert — in return for a donation to the booster club and an invitation to the concert. The work begins at 8:30 a.m. Friday and continues all day. Then things are finished up during a two-and-a-half hour session the afternoon of the concert. Once the music stops, the team immediately begins taking down chairs so the equipment trucks can get to the stage to load out sound and lights.
"Sawyer Brown's road manager told me yesterday that they have to get on the road pretty fast because they're headed to a concert the next day in Ft. Alexander, Manitoba, 1100 miles from here," Roy said.
Elsewhere in the arena, Jamie Lutz and her crew provide food for the workers and the bands.
"They make sure everyone is well-nourished," Roy said.
And a team of volunteer ushers show up to make sure everyone gets to the correct seat.
"Some of the ushers have been helping out since the first concert 21 years ago," Roy said.
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