Water Tower Town'

Big group roars into little 'water tower town'

Posted by Dick Myers On 09/28/2015

St. Leonard, MD -- The hot country group Little Big Town has been around since 1998. But it doesn’t seem that long. That’s because it’s only been recently that their biggest hits have been achieved. They had several hit singles in the mid 2000’s (Boondocks and Bring it on Home). But early on they had label troubles, and it was only after hooking up with Capital Records in 2008 that they started to achieve the success they justly deserve.

The original four members of the group are still together: Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook and Philip Sweet (Karen and Jimi are husband and wife). All four members alternate as lead singers. They are really big time, with 2015 nominations by the Country Music Association (CMA) for Vocal Group of the Year, Album of the Year (Pain Killer) and single and song of the year for Girl Crush.

Little Big Town roared into St. Leonard on Friday, Sept. 25 for the final concert of the season at Bayside Toyota Pavilion. They had originally been scheduled to perform last month but that was postponed because of an illness of one of the members. Little Big Town in every sense of the word puts on an audio/visual extravaganza. The music underscores everything they do, but it is backed up with a dazzling light and big screen video show to complement it

When the curtains rose, the words Pain Killer were emblazoned on the side of the stage to indicate the name of their latest tour. The set opened with “What Were We Doing,” with a dazzling light show; the second song, “Quit Breaking up with Me” featured the words of the song cleverly flashing on the screen.

The group doesn’t do a lot of banter during their performances, letting the music speak for itself. But at one point Karen looked out over the crowd to the St. Leonard water tower in the distance and said, “There’s something about a water tower town. Good people live there.”

The large crowd was into it by the time Little Big Town got to their musical trifecta of hits: the hard hitting Pontoon (#1 in 2012 and Country Music Single of the Year) and Tornado (#2 and Music Video of the Year) and the severely low key Girl Crush (#3 and CMA nominee).

Girl Crush was slow taking off when it was released last year because inexplicably some country stations banned it because they believed it was about lesbian love. Of course it was about a perfectly regular country theme of jealousy by one woman for the woman who took her man. It deserves to be Single of the Year this year according to this reviewer.

Opening act for the concert was Lauren Alaina (shown at left), American Idol runner-up for the 10th season in 2011. The Georgia native set included her biggest selling record Georgia Peaches. She was warmly received by the audience.

The final concert of the season once again is testament to the year-after-year concert successes by the St. Leonard Volunteer Fire Department. It’ll be interesting to see how they top it next year.

The attached Photo Gallery is by The Bay Net Photojournalist Ron Bailey.

Contact Dick Myers at [email protected]

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