Country singers Tyler Farr and Clayton Anderson are performing at MemAud as part of the Performing Arts and Concert Series.
Country singers Tyler Farr and Clayton Anderson have both played in Athens before, but Friday night’s show will be the first time their styles of country music come together on one stage.
Farr and Anderson, who is opening for Farr, will perform at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium as part of the Performing Arts and Concert Series. The show begins at 8 p.m.
“It’s going to be a great time,” Anderson said. “Tyler Farr is awesome, and getting to play in a great college town like Athens, you can’t put anything better together than that.”
Farr opened a show with an acoustic set at MemAud for singers Josh Thompson and Rodney Atkins in 2013, according to Andrew Holzaepfel, senior associate director of the Campus Involvement Center.
“Even people who didn’t know who he was, they got into the set even though there were two other well-known artists following him,” Holzaepfel said.
Farr is best known for his songs “A Guy Walks into a Bar,” “Whiskey in My Water” and his first No. 1 hit “Redneck Crazy.” His latest album Suffer in Peace, released in April, contains his two latest singles “Withdrawals” and “Better in Boots.”
After touring all summer with Jason Aldean on his Burn It Down Tour, Farr is headlining a few shows of his own, including his stop in Athens.
“It’s selling really quickly right now,” Holzaepfel said. “I’d anticipate a very full house or a sold out house.”
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Anderson said Friday’s show will be his first of a few shows that he’ll be playing with Farr and added that Athens is the perfect place to start. He said his set will sound like a mixture of Kenny Chesney, John Mellencamp and Jimmy Buffett.
“It’s kind of one of those shows you can come in, hang with your friends and forget your troubles for a bit,” Anderson said.
Holzaepfel said Farr will likely draw in a young crowd from the surrounding area.
“I think you’ll find him on a lot of college (students') playlists that are into country, but as well as the young 20 and 30 year olds that are into country,” he said.
Anderson released his first album, Torn Jeans & Tailgates, in 2011 and has continued singing and traveling since. One of his stop a few years ago was in Athens at The Red Brick Tavern.
“A great college town is the best place in the world to me,” Anderson said. “Obviously Ohio (University) is a great school. Being there just one time and playing the Red Brick bar, I feel it’s going to be a real good time now.”
Anderson won Kenny Chesney’s “Next Big Star” competition in 2008, which led to him to open for Chesney at Riverbend Music Center. He said he went to Nashville afterward and got rejected, but decided to return to Indiana to continue playing and growing.
Although Anderson said one of his favorite songs is the first one he wrote alone that few have ever heard, he said the favorite “Right Where I Belong” resonates with him because it’s about living life and being happy in the moment.
Anderson added that he’d be willing to go out Uptown or even return to Red Brick.
“I never shy away from a party,” he said.
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