Zac Brown Band at Target Field with OneRepublic and Caroline Jones

Atlanta, GA based country music star Zac Brown has a lot of fans, and over 37,000 of them showed up to see him and his band headline Target Field in downtown Minneapolis on a perfect Minnesota summer night. Backed by a band of talented players, Zac Brown defies country music standards with a genre bending approach to his craft. On this night, the band weaved in and out of rock-n-roll cover songs with ease, oftentimes stringing them together with their originals like “Uncaged” > Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” > the Charlie Daniels’ classic “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” that blasted the crowd early on. Later on, keyboardist Clay Cook took the vocals for an amazing rendition of “Whipping Post” by fellow Georgians The Allman Brothers Band.

While the cover songs provided a nice mix to the set, the huge crowd (made up entirely of Caucasians across all ages) put the most energy into Zac Brown Band originals. “Colder Weather” was a singalong, with many in the crowd lighting up their phones which created an ethereal sparkle to the clear night sky. Later on the talented opener Caroline Jones joined Zac Brown Band for “Day That I Die” and that sounded great. The night ended with a string of hits including the song that really cemented Zac Brown Band’s popularity, “Chicken Fried”.

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Caroline Jones opened the show with a short and sweet set including her new single “Bare Feet“. She’s a name country fans should remember. After her set, Colorado pop rock band OneRepublic played radio hit after hit and sounded pretty great. Only playing a few shows this year while they record a new album, the Colorado-based band that gave the world “Counting Stars” provided high-energy and crowd-pleasing primer for Zac Brown Band.

Zac Brown Band put on an excellent performance at Target Field. But from a photographer’s standpoint it was not fun to photograph. We were forced to shoot from the soundboard, which for me, was entirely a waste of time. Put me in that pit and I will rock it.

OneRepublic

Caroline Jones