By Brent Michael, Rock At Night Tampa Correspondent
Venue: Busch Gardens Wine and Food Festival Concert Series, Tampa, Florida. Saturday, March 16th, 2019
Busch Gardens Tampa kicked off this year’s Concert Series with some good new rock and rollers: Daughtry and The Band Perry (article coming soon!). As the frontman for the band bearing his name, Chris Daughtry has become one of the most visible and consistent rock and roll torchbearers of the 21st Century. Since rising to prominence on the fifth season of American Idol, he has released five albums, four of which reached the Billboard Top Ten and have combined sales over 8 million copies in the U.S. – and the fifth, Cage to Rattle was released last July, and made the fifth consecutive album to make the Top Ten, as well as doing well in other countries.
Interestingly, Daughtry didn’t win American Idol, he actually came in fourth! Just shows how much you can depend on the results to predict success, he’s now the third most successful of all the American Idol contestants, bested only by Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood – who won their respective seasons. Chris Daughtry was asked to audition as the lead vocalist for Fuel and, though incredibly flattered, he declined the offer in order to form his own band. Smart move, it seems!
Daughtry’s self-titled debut was the best-selling album of 2007, which contained four Top Twenty hit singles including the Grammy-nominated smash “It’s Not Over.” “Leave This Town” also reached Number One in 2009, while 2011’s “Break the Spell” was certified gold. His group’s 2013 release, Baptized, featured the platinum-selling “Waiting for Superman”.
All those releases gave them plenty of material for a one-hour set, and they played several songs from the newest album along with older hits, including an acoustic and semi-acoustic set.
The band has gone through a few personnel changes, current lineup being:
- Chris Daughtry – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, composer
- Josh Steely – lead guitar, backing vocals
- Brian Craddock – rhythm guitar, backing vocals, composer
- Josh Paul – bass guitar, backing vocals, composer
- Elvio Fernandes – keyboards, backing vocals, composer
- Brandon Maclin – drums, backing vocals
All the players worked well together, and did a great job kicking off the six-week concert series!
Photo Gallery
When not in custody, I've been involved with music, photography, and writing my entire life. Ever since I was a young boy and played those silver tunes, I've had the beat, but being a drummer didn't suit me so I became a lead singer, which lasted a few years. Settling down, sort of, I translated my knowledge of audio and glib tongue into mobile emcee work, and my training as a photographer and videographer into a living in the wedding, party, bar/bat mitzvah, and entertainment industry. During this time I also managed to bamboozle my way into a master's degree in writing, worked for a couple of magazines (yes, I took photos for a nudist magazine!), have photographed hotels, done commercial work (shot the cover of Tablet and Capsule magazine), published a few articles, hosted some public access shows (a couple times in drag, but that's another story), and generally made a nuisance of myself until I landed here.
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