Danny Wimmer Presents: Hometown Rising – Country Music & Bourbon Festival
Highland Festival Grounds at Kentucky Expo Center
Louisville, Kentucky
September 14 and 15, 2019
Day 1
The inaugural Hometown Rising festival was everything country music fans had hoped for and more! With headliners like Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban and Little Big Town, Hometown Rising was sure to entertain. Mix in some bluegrass, modern country, southern rock and classic country acts, throw in all kinds of dance lessons (line dance, two-step, west coast swing, east coast swing) and demonstrations, not only could you hear your new favourite artist but you could learn some sweet dance moves as well! Oh, wait! I forgot about the bourbon, this is Kentucky after all where bourbon lives! Hometown Rising had something for everyone!
The great mixture of music styles, dance and drink had not just country music fans but music fans in general showing up by the tens of thousands, over 70,000 in fact, to make this first-year festival a sell out! I’m guessing that sell out all but ensures that Hometown Rising will be back next year. What a way to kick off three weekends of Danny Wimmer Presents festivals at the Highland Festival Grounds in Louisville!
Noah Guthrie is where my coverage of Day 1 started, but early sets on this first day included IMAJ, Alice Wallace, Raelyn Nelson Band, J.D. Shelburne and The Sisterhood Band and I am sorry that I could not get to everyone!
But as I said Noah Guthrie is where I started my day. Noah is no stranger to performing and that showed in his relaxed stage presence. What a lot of the people, if the crowd may have known, was that he’d been on the TV shows Glee and America’s Got Talent, I was not one of those. But my ignorance of his TV career didn’t change my appreciation of his stage performance on this day! The Steel Woods was next on my schedule for Day One. The Steel Woods are a Country/southern rock band from Nashville, TN that need to be seen live, yes I said need to be seen live! Music Life Magazine’s own James Stamper did a nice write about the band that can be found here. As with most of the artists performing today, this was my first opportunity to see the live set and they did not disappoint!
The next two artists are the exception to the previous sentence, in that I have photographed both of these artists at one of my home venues, the Appalachian Wireless Arena. The last time I saw Lindsay Ell she was opening for Brad Paisley and she put on a good show, but wow in the time since then (about a year and a half) has her stage presence grown! She had the crowd around the Oak stage captivated with her every word and move. The Cadillac Three was the second artist on Day One’s schedule that I had recently covered. Early this year they shared a bill with Travis Tritt in Pikeville, Kentucky. They were one of the acts I was really looking forward to seeing and they did not let me down! The Cadillac Three play a serious brand on southern rock with a little country mixed in, judging from the crowd reactions I wasn’t the only one enjoying what they were offering!
As the day gets longer, as is the way with music festivals, the names get bigger and the next two to take the Oak and Barrel stages respectively are heavyweights in the country music world. Trace Adkins on the Oak Stage and Dwight Yoakam on the Barrel.
Trace Adkins has been making music for 20+ years and has built a serious fan base. And judging from the reaction when he took the stage a lot of this huge sold-out crowd counted themselves among that fan base. If you weren’t a fan or just not paying attention when he hit one of those deep ground shaking notes with his voice, he had your attention! His setlist consisted of hit song after hit song but he closed his set with what he called the #1 most requested country song in strip clubs across America “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” and that really had the crowd dancing!
Kentucky native Dwight Yoakam was next to take the Barrel Stage. Like Trace Adkins before him, Dwight has been releasing music for many years but that’s not the only similarity between them. Both have a successful acting career in TV and movies! But today is about music and Dwight Yoakam is giving this huge crowd what they came to hear, authentic country music played and sang to perfection. With his trademark hat and unique voice the Hometown Rising crowd got what they paid for in one set, a country music experience! The legendary Johnny Cash once said that Dwight Yoakam had one of THE best voices in country music and who am I to disagree with a country music legend, no a music legend like Johnny Cash? After his set, I think you’ll find a lot of people that will agree with Mr. Cash!
With only Little Big Town and Tim McGraw left for the day the crowd, as you would imagine, had grown to record size. Little Big Town was closing out the Oak Stage and Tim McGraw the Barrel.
Little Big Town opened their set with “Pontoon” a huge hit for them from a few years ago. They cranked out a setlist that was filled with huge hit songs and crowd favourites. The small portion of this enormous crowd that I could see, was enjoying everything that Little Big Town had to offer. Dancing and singing every word to every song! Closing out what by all accounts was a hugely successful day one of Hometown Rising none other than Tim McGraw! By the time he took the stage, there was 30,000 plus waiting to rock out into the Louisville night. Tim McGraw hit the Barrel stage at full force, opening with “Truck Yeah” and not letting off the gas for 18 more songs! Ending his 2 song encore with “Indian Outlaw”.
That brought to an end Day One, yes there is one more day! Let’s see what Day Two has in store…
Check out our coverage of Hometown Rising Day 2.
All photos by Tom Biggs
©2019. Please DO NOT copy or use without permission.
