Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors Play Opelika Thursday (10/24/2013)

Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors (online at drewholcomb.com) will perform tomorrow night (Thursday, 10/24) in Opelika at the Cultural Center of East Alabama* for Cottonseed Studios' new series, Cottonseed Live. The show will start at 8:00 PM. Get your $15-apiece tickets online through the Arts Association of East Alabama, whose website lists the other acts in this new series here.

Two recent articles have highlighted Cottonseed Live. They are "Cottonseed Live brings new music to area" by Carla Nelson of The Corner News and "Folk rock band Dawes coming to downtown Opelika" by Jeffrey Moore of The Auburn Plainsman.

Some very interesting facts from the bio of Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors:

• Since 2005, Drew has sold more than 85,000 records and played more than 1,500 live dates
• He has toured alongside acts such as The Avett Brothers, Ryan Adams, Los Lobos, Needtobreathe, Susan Tedeschi, and North Mississippi Allstars
• Good Light, the album currently being promoted through this tour, debuted #84 on the Billboard Top 200
• The music video for the first single, “Good Light”, has been featured on VH1, CMT Pure, & E! News
• The band has had over 40 placements on 10 different television networks, including “How I Met Your Mother”, “Criminal Minds”, “Nashville”, “Parenthood”, & “Justified.”
• They’ve been featured in USA Today, American Songwriter, Paste, and Huffington Post

They are kind of a big deal, write great songs, and have compelling onstage personalities.

This band has lots of professionally produced music videos to watch, and they are emotional and entertaining. But I embedded a live performance above to give some confidence in how high I think the quality of the concert Thursday will be. The Saint Johns will also perform, and I don't have any time to check them out. Visit their website at thesaintjohns.com for more.

There will be a pumpkin carving contest from 5:00 to 7:30 before the concert. The three pumpkins judged to be the best by the Neighbors' front man and woman, Drew and Ellie Holcomb, will win prizes for their carvers. The first 30 people to show up will receive a free pumpkin. After that, organizers say it is BYOP, and you must provide your own carving tools.

There will be a food truck, and Overall Company will be vending its artisan pops. You can bring your own booze.

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*The Cultural Center of East Alabama at 1103 Glenn Street is not the same thing as the Opelika Center for the Performing Arts at Opelika High School, 1700 Lafayette Parkway. We had a problem with this when I was promoting a jazz concert back in April. In fact, since the Cultural Center used to be the Miriam Brown Elementary School, Cottonseed is going so far as to call it by a cooler name, the Brown School Music Hall, though this is probably not city-sanctioned. Mamma Mia (see a previous post) will be at the OCPA.