Rain or shine, Lee Brice puts on a spring concert to remember
By Alexis Ancel, Staff Writer //
As the first country artist to headline a High Point University concert, up and coming country star Lee Brice put on quite a show.
The concert began with opening acts The Cadillac Three and Chase Bryant, singer of the popular country hit “Take It On Back.” Both acts seemed to be well received by the audience, but the true moment of excitement was when the lights went down and Lee Brice took the stage.
Brice opened with his latest hit “Drinking Class.” The rest of the set list included some of his biggest hits so far, primarily from his newer albums Hard 2 Love and I Don’t Dance such as “Hard to Love,” “Love Like Crazy,” “A Woman Like You” and “I Drive Your Truck,” one song in particular that means a great deal to Lee Brice. His final song was “I Don’t Dance,” which Brice wrote for his own wedding and was considered to be one of the top wedding songs of 2014.
He also included several covers of songs by other artists in different genres. He performed a mash up of Majic!’s “Rude” and Bruno Mars’s “Locked Out of Heaven,” as well as a cover of “Crazy Girl,” a song Lee Brice wrote himself for the Eli Young Band in 2011. Brice started his music career as a songwriter for other artists but didn’t begin to sing them himself until he put out his first album Love Like Crazy, and he still writes and produces the majority of his own songs.
For any artist, interaction with the crowd and the fans is key (which HPU learned the hard way after the “Fiasco” fiasco). Lee Brice had not only an incredible stage presence, but his appreciation for his fans was clear. About halfway into the show, Brice took the guitar off his back, signed it, then leaned down to hand it off to someone in the crowd. At one point he also put on a hat that someone had thrown on stage.
This type of interaction is incredibly important for any artist’s career, particularly a new artist, and it’s one that Lee Brice clearly has figured out and was greatly appreciated by the HPU students.
There was also a significant green element to this concert. Brice is currently on his Campus Consciousness Tour, which is a project of REVERB and is both a music tour and an environmental campaign. HPU students got involved with this by cleaning up trash and planting small plants alongside Lee Brice in the garden area behind Blessing Hall. Brice says, “We’re hoping to offset the environmental impact of the tour by supporting clean energy projects and using buses and trucks fueled with locally produced biodiesel. “I have two sons and I look at this as investing in their future and that of kids around the world.”
The only bit of disappointment surrounding the concert came from the issue of the location change. Due to a forecast predicting rain, the concert was moved into the Millis gym – a move the university has had to make multiple times due to severe weather forecasts. What was new this year, was that students found themselves waiting outside for hours, some not ever making it in because of the gym’s occupant capacity. Nearly half of the school’s population had little hope of getting in, never mind the three guests each student was allowed to bring. While technically HPU had no control over this issue, it was unfortunate for those students who had waited all semester to see Brice and were turned away.
Overall, Lee Brice was well received by the student body and despite a disappointing move indoors, the HPU 2015 Spring Concert was ultimately a success.