Darius Rucker

When Hootie & the Blowfish took a sabbatical and lead singer Darius Rucker popped up a few years later singing country music, there were a few raised eyebrows. Aside from the obvious observations of a black singer in a very white dominated music scene, this was the man whose band had been one of the nineties most loved mainstream rock acts, even featuring in the TV smash Friends.

But his first two solo albums have been so well received, there have numerous awards and Rucker is now firmly established in the Nashville family. Musically, there’s no great leap if you listen to the whole of Hootie’s output, there’s just more twang and a lot more tongue in cheek. In fact, tonight there’s a sprinkle of Hootie songs in the set-list, underlining that the band’s musical roots were always pretty close to country.

Rucker is here supporting one of US country’s biggest stars, Brad Paisley, but judging by the number of Darius Rucker tee-shirts and the singing along to a number of his songs, he’s also got a certain amount of pulling power himself. His voice sounds impressive in the huge dome as he belts out Love Will Do That and Alright and the hilarious break-up song All I Want; “you can have my money, you can have the house…..you can have every penny I make from this here song, girl, all I want is for you to leave me alone.”

There’s more humour with the excellent Tequila Song and then the tender moments like Southern State of Mind and the tear-jerking It Won’t Be Like This For Long and also those Hootie moments; Let Her Cry is sung with real emotion while the two other early hits of the band’s, Hold My Hand and Only Wanna be With You are also included in a superb 60-minute set. To round-off there are those same raised eyebrows that greeted his ‘career move’ as he gives Oasis’ Champagne Supernova the Nashville treatment.

Rucker's second album Charleston, SC 1966 is just being released in the UK and his fans will hope he’s back soon to promote it again and this time at the top of the bill.