By: Jordan Studer
Jstuder@wbcowqel.com
“Bucyrus? Am I saying that right? It sounds like a smash-up of Billy-Ray Cyrus!” lead singer, TJ Osborne of Brothers Osborne band told the crowd in the FC Bank parking lot Friday during their performance at the Bratwurst Festival.
Glow sticks lit up the air during Friday evening’s concert as families and friends gathered to sing and dance along to some great music by two bands. The main act of the evening was the amazingly talented, Brothers Osborne from Deale, Maryland.
Opening for Brothers Osborne was the Eric Sowers Band from Sycamore, Ohio. The energy of the crowd began building as the band sang covers by many artist like Kenny Chesney, Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, and many more. The band also shared with the audience an original song they recently recorded a couple months back called “My Kind of Country,” now available on iTunes. Sowers’ country twang and stage presence made for a great opener.
As the night progressed, the crowd swelled with anticipation while awaiting the arrival of Brothers Osborne.
Soon after taking the stage the band began to interact with their fans right away talking to them in between songs.
“You know, I think you guys up here probably feel some of our pain, me and my brother, we come from the east coast, from Maryland, a little town called Deale. The people wonder all the time how we get into country music and we grow up country because we didn’t grow up in the south. And you guys up here in Ohio know, you don’t need to be down in the Deep South to be country right?” TJ said while the crowd went wild in agreement.
The crowd was filled with people of all ages as the band filled the air with their hits such as “Rum,” “Stay A Little Longer,” and “Arms of Fire,” among others. From the Jr. Princess and her court in the front row rocking away to adults bobbing their heads crazily.
One couple, Karen and Eric Frazier, came all the way from Pleasantville, Ohio just to see Brothers Osborne play again. At the end of the night they seemed to be well-satisfied saying, “It was awesome! We’ve seen them before and this is the reason we came all this way.”
“Amazing! I mean their musicality is far beyond their time. Their ability to mix country and rock and feel like everybody is one with their music, no other country artist is like that. You can go to Luke Bryan concerts, you can go to Blake Shelton concerts, but I’d rather be right here standing front stage with people that genuinely care,” adoring fan, Chelsea Goldstein, gushed over the performance of Brothers Osborne.
Another front row rocker, Alissa Plakaros was floored with the show.
“it was absolutely amazing, I love those guys. I got to meet them too, they are really funny, nice, great guys,” Plakaros raved.
A photo gallery of the concert can be found at http://crawfordcountynow.com/photos/brothers-osborne
The last day of the Bratwurst Festival will feature a parade at 4 p.m. followed by the annual stein auction. The Bratwurst Festival will wrap up with a concert by Keith Anderson and Outshyne.