A strong Ohio following and a college-based audience will bring O.A.R. back to Athens tonight along with special guest Kingsfoil.
The concert, presented by the Ohio University Performing
Arts Series, will be at the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. tonight.
“This is our fifth try to get them here, and we finally found a date that worked for us both,” said Andrew Holzaepfel, associate director of the Campus Involvement Center and booking agent for the Performing Arts Series. “Students have been requesting it for the last few years, so it’s great that they’re coming.”
The group is continuing its tour and promoting its seventh studio album, King, which held the No. 3 spot on the iTunes Album chart and No. 12 spot on the Billboard Top 200 following its Aug. 2 release.
“King has progressed in a way that shows we’ve grown and matured,” said Jerry Depizzo, a member of the band whose talents range from playing the saxophone to singing backup vocals. “This album is directed at a broader audience, and we’ve concentrated on sticking with our roots, as well as writing tunes that spoke to us from the beginning.”
O.A.R.’s show will open with a performance by Kingsfoil, a group from Lancaster, Penn., which opened for the Goo Goo Dolls in Athens last April.
“When we played last year, we didn’t know what to expect,” said Jordan Davis, lead singer of Kingsfoil. “But we had such a good time, and there are so many cool people at this school. We’re excited to come back, and we hope that those people come out again.”
O.A.R. is also excited to be returning to OU, a place that Depizzo said he feels a special connection to.
“I have a really special place in my heart for OU,” said Depizzo. “It has been a regular stop for us for a really long time. It seems to be an especially important chapter in the history of O.A.R.”
Tickets for the show are $55 for the first ten rows and $35 for the remaining seats. As of Monday, nearly 1,000 tickets had been sold of the 2,500-seat auditorium, Holzaepfel said, adding that the main floor was almost sold-out.
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