In case you didn’t know, there’s a brand new, $14.9 million amphitheater located minutes from the University, nestled right next to downtown Tuscaloosa, and it’s opening this spring. With any common sense, one would believe that the opening act to this new amphitheater would cater to a majority of the 30,000 college students that live right down the road.
Sorry, guys. It’s Kenny Chesney. Granted, Chesney is a huge name in country music, but if you’ve lived in town for a while, you would know that he was going to come whether we spent $14.9 million or not.
Unfortunately for most of us, country music seems like it is going to be the norm at the new amphitheater. The only other show booked for the new venue is the country-pop duo Sugarland, who, according to their website, will play a show in Tuscaloosa on April 15.
In a town once played to by Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, the only names we seem to be getting are Eric Church, Luke Bryan and Randy Rogers. Oxford, Mississippi, home to Ole Miss, hosted MGMT, Glitch Mob, Matt & Kim, Jimmy Eat World and Of Montreal this year. Oxford is one-forth the size of Tuscaloosa and has 11,000 fewer college students. And they don’t have an amphitheater.
The new theater is managed by Red Mountain Entertainment, which also oversees the Schaeffer Eye Center Crawfish Boil and the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis. This sounds hopeful, but I still think fans of everything but country music are sending up a collective prayer that Red Mountain will set its sights in a direction other than mainstream country stars that are happy to play a show “down home.”
This is a college town. I hope someone at Red Mountain Entertainment is listening to 90.7 The Capstone, the college radio station. I am aware that there are university students that love country music, but I’m willing to bet the majority has a different preference.
The Tuscaloosa Amphitheater’s Facebook pages boasts that it will bring in country, R&B, alternative, blues and jazz acts, but it seems like it will be a waiting game for this to be proven.
Hannah Marcum is a junior majoring in journalism.
