Homecoming week has been wracked with events and activities so far, but there is one thing missing from the bill this year: a Homecoming concert. After last year’s poor turnout for the Taking Back Sunday fall concert in Coleman Coliseum, perhaps the University just opted out of another possible dud.
However, the Bama Theatre will be hosting the Southbound Showdown tonight beginning at 8. Produced by Nashville’s Southbound Entertainment company, it will feature a night of four concerts by four artists of various genres and styles of Southern music by Shannon McNally, Grayson Capps, the Stanton Moore Trio and Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk.
“I’m excited about this show,” said Bama Theatre manager David Allgood. “It’s an attempt by a promoter to bring a great concert to the Bama on the night before a UA home game — something that’s never been attempted before in the time that I’ve been manager here (nearly 8 years).”
Tickets are $10 for students with a valid student I.D. and $15 for the general public. They are available at the Bama Theatre and Oz Music.
“This is quite a bargain to hear bands as talented as Dumpstaphunk and Stanton Moore Trio,” Allgood said. “You would normally pay more than that just to see a show with only one of them.”
“Our goal is to get some of the people coming from out of town to come out to the Bama,” said Alan Brockman of Southbound Entertainment. “It’s a perfect venue for what we’re doing.”
The Southbound Showdown has been traveling the SEC and putting on shows before big home football games for weeks now, and will be heading to Knoxville on Nov. 11 and the SEC Championship in December. They are also making an entire gameday weekend event out of these shows, with tailgates and other events before and after the big show.
“I know a lot of students have plans for parties and things on Friday,” Allgood said, “but there are a lot of other students, faculty and people in town looking for entertainment. I hope people will come out and support the show and, if it’s successful, this could become a regular event on Friday nights during football season.”
Co-promoting the show will be the Tuscaloosa News, whose large RV will be in front of the Bama Theatre on Friday before the show, playing music and hoping to draw in the crowd to the event, which will include pre-show drink specials at the Bama Bar inside the theatre.
The main event will last around three to three and a half hours, Brockman said.
“[The lineup] tightens up the artists’ set so they’re not playing for two hours each,” he said. “So the audience is getting a package show instead of just one.”
Also before the show, at 5:30 p.m., Shannon McNally and Grayson Capps will be performing an intimate live show at Oz Music on 15th Street, free of charge.
“Shannon’s kind of got this Stevie Nicks style,” Brockman said.
Based out of Mississippi, McNally’s style combines the classic rock she grew up listening to with the sultry soul of New Orleans. Her band, Hot Sauce, released its third album this year.
Grayson Capps is an Alabama native, also influenced by the sounds of the Bayou, but with a style that is edgy and fun, Brockman said.
Next up on the stage will be the Stanton Moore Trio, who have been playing that funky music in New Orleans since drummer Moore began in the early 1990s.
Ending the Showdown is Dumpstaphunk, a fivesome the New York Times has ranked the number one funk act to come out of New Orleans. Its members have performed with various great artists over the years, such as The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews and John Mayer.
The setup is supposed to be a throwback to that of the Louisiana Hayride, Brockman said, the sort of underground music series in the 1950s and ‘60s that launched the careers of legends like Elvis and Johnny Cash.
“We’re just having a big music brouhaha,” he said.
