Hootie & The Blowfish announces new tour, return to Columbia
South Carolina fans hoping to see Hootie & The Blowfish live at Columbia’s Colonial Life Arena will get another chance in 2024.
The band on Monday announced the Summer Camp with Trucks Tour which includes a stop at CLA on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024.
[Enter to win a framed ‘Forever To Thee’ print from SC artist Beth Clark]
That date is, likely not coincidentally, just two days before South Carolina opens its 2024 football season at home against Old Dominion on Aug. 31.
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Tickets go on sale to the general public this Friday with several presale options available before that throughout this week.
The band famously got its start on the University of South Carolina campus when Mark Bryan heard eventual band frontman and now-famous country music singer Darius Rucker singing in the shower at their dorm.
The band last performed at Colonial Life Arena during a three-night stop in September of 2019. Rucker, a diehard Gamecock fan who attends many of the home football games, also performed a free concert for students in April of 2022 to celebrate the women’s basketball program’s national championship.
[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-Vanderbilt football game]
More on Hootie & The Blowfish below via the band’s website:
With the rich, bluesy vocals of Darius Rucker and gleeful harmonies of guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish sold over 25 million records worldwide after their infectious melodies hit the airwaves in 1994 with hits such as “Hold My Hand”, “Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”
One of the biggest misconceptions to most people is that Hootie & The Blowfish became an overnight success in 1994 when their debut album Cracked Rear View, moved over 16 million copies (and counting) in the U. S. alone. What most people don’t know was that the album’s triumph came after a decade of hard work.
The quartet met while attending the University of South Carolina in Columbia in the late 1980s. New freshman Mark Bryan heard Darius Rucker singing in the showers of the dorm they shared and was impressed by his vocal ability. Bryan and Rucker began playing cover tunes as The Wolf Brothers and eventually hooked up with Dean Felber, a former high school bandmate of Bryan’s, and Brantley Smith as Hootie & The Blowfish. (The unlikely moniker was borrowed from the nicknames of two college friends.) When Smith’s true passion called him home to Greenville, SC in 1989, Bryan reached out to classmate Jim (Soni) Sonefeld to join the band and the immediate chemistry was undeniable!
By the time they graduated, endless gigs at frat parties and local bars had built a major local buzz. “We’d started adding original material to our repertoire,” Bryan recalled. “Our songs went over well, so we decided to see if we could make a career out of it. Even if we hadn’t had a hit, I know we’d still be making music today, because it’s exactly what we want to be doing.”
The band’s secret weapon, and the force that pulls all of its diverse influences together, is the voice of Darius Rucker, an expressive instrument brimming with gritty soul and subtle wit. When he sings, the songs are imbued with a buoyant good humor and an openhearted joy that connects on an almost spiritual level with audiences all over the world. “Having Darius in the band is a wonderful luxury,” Mark Bryan explained. “We can try something funky, or bluegrassy or a ballad; we can run the gamut stylistically, but never stray too far from our sound because once Darius starts singing, it’s Hootie and the Blowfish.
