But the Labor Day crowd got a master class in this approach with Gary Clark Jr.’s apocalyptic spin on The Beatles “Come Together,” which closed his phenomenal evening set on Sunday. Johnson also brought out the opening act, Bahamas, to join him for a sweet and winning Tom Petty tribute, playing “You Don’t Know How It Feels” in full.Ī third way, with cover songs, is to re-imagine a classic and make it your own. On “Flake,” he interspersed a bit of a Grateful Dead-styled “Not Fade Away.” Later it was bits of Sublime’s “Badfish” and Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” and Bob Marley’s “Soul Shakedown.” They did short interludes of the Eagles’ “Take It To the Limit” and Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” between verses of their own songs Sunday.) On his “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing” Johnson dropped a few verses of The Cars’ “Just What I needed.
And he used the covers mostly as interludes within his own songs. He stuck to songs close to his laid-back rock style – his cover choices are all Jack Johnson adjacent. The previous night’s headliner, Jack Johnson, also worked a ton of cover songs into his set. But few bands are doing it with such unexpected material and results as the Zac Brown Band. Especially when they’re playing to a big festival crowd like Jazz Aspen’s Labor Day fest, in front of people who may have come out to see somebody else, it’s a surefire way to get an audience on board. Of course, just about every pop acts works some covers into their sets. Their “Whipping Post” is the closest their covers come their home genre, but seeing organ player Clay Cook and his mates do karaoke Allman Brothers – including dueling guitar solos from Brown and Coy Bowles – was a Southern rock thrill worthy of the Allmans. And it may be why the Zac Brown Band and has made it into the stratosphere of American pop music and has been filling stadiums across the U.S. Both got the crowd in Snowmass Town Park roaring and singing along. Their straightforward version of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody,” likewise, was the band’s honest take on a soaring pop number. On Sunday when they played Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” – with Brown playing bass and Hopkins on vocals – it was as menacing a heavy-metal scorcher as the original. Brown knows he’s got a band that can do anything, so he lets them try to pull off everything. They approach them earnestly, bringing the band’s stellar skills to hip-hop and metal and funk. The remarkable thing about the Zac Brown Band’s covers – which were also peppered throughout the set – is that the band doesn’t do ironic country-fied versions of these songs from far-flung genres. (The day’s opening band, The Record Company, also closed their set with a “Sabotage” cover.) They did Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” and Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets,” they did The Police’s “Message in a Bottle” and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You.” Bass player John Driskell Hopkins rapped Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and Brown himself took the lead vocals on AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” before they closed the night with the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” fiddle player Jimmy De Martini center-stage on the mic doing the Ad-Rock part. Each band member took the lead and sang a verse on their own song, with idiosyncratic selections far beyond the Zac Brown Band’s country-rock wheelhouse. “Let me show them off for a minute.”īrown and his seven-man crew then launched into an eight-song medley of covers - a staple of the band’s summer stadium tour that showcases their ability to nail just about any genre. “I have one of the greatest bands in the world behind me,” Zac Brown told the sold out crowd at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Sunday night after stepping back on-stage for an encore. Zac Brown Band performing on Sunday during the JAS Labor Day Experience.
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