FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019 The Boston Globe G5
By Maura Johnston
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
Zac Brown Band’s shows at Fenway Park
have become a summertime tradition. This
weekend, the roots-country-jam-pop act
will play its 10th and 11th headlining
shows at the Red Sox’s home.
For bassist Matt Mangano and multi-in-
strumentalist Clay Cook, though, the
band’s Fenway shows are a return to one of
their college haunts. The two former Berk-
lee students would attend baseball games
— “When we were there, Nomar was there,”
notes Cook — as a respite from school.
In 2014, Zac Brown Band headlined
Fenway for the first time, a two-night stint
filled with covers (Metallica, Dropkick
Murphys, Billy Joel, and the cameo-ing
Doobie Brothers were among the artists
whose tracks the band borrowed) and their
own hits like the shuffling “Chicken Fried”
and the sun-dappled “Toes.” It was a heady
experience for Mangano and Cook.
“Stepping out for that first time, there
was so much nostalgia wrapped in that city
for me,” Cook recalls. “A year prior, I got to
see [Bruce] Springsteen, and I was sitting
in the first row of seats in Fenway [then].
So I had a dual perspective.”
“I actually spent a good portion of the
time trying to not look out, because it was
so overwhelming,” says Mangano.
That show and the ones that followed
over the ensuing years were, to borrow a
metaphor, home runs. With its wide fan-
base in New England, Zac Brown Band has
proven to be one of the summer concert
season’s most reliable draws. The band’s
hooky hits, which topped the country
charts even as they play with the genre’s
constraints, are a huge part of their appeal,
but repeat concertgoers know that they’re
adept at turning out varied setlists that
show off their chops as a band and as indi-vidual players.
Part of that flaunting comes from the
covers the band chooses, from 2014’s Doo-
bies-assisted “Black Water,” to last year’s
barnburning, Cook-led version of the All-
man Brothers’ “Whipping Post” that would
have taken the roof off Fenway if it had one,
to that show’s breakneck closing medley,
which led off with Living Colour and went
through a slew of other classic-rock staples
before closing out with the Beastie Boys’
“Sabotage.”
“We really enjoy [playing covers], be-
cause we all came from playing in cover
bands in some ways,” says Mangano.
“That’s how a lot of players get their start —
you’ve got to play other people’s songs. That
is what makes us who we are as musicians.
The fact that we had to learn all thesesongs, and our music is modeled after the
musicians, writers, and players and artists
that came before us. It’s our way of paying
tribute to that.”
In September, Zac Brown Band will re-
lease its sixth album, “The Owl.” If the sin-
gles released from it so far and its roster of
collaborations — which includes EDM
mastermind Skrillex, pop kingpin Max
Martin, and Nashville up-and-comer An-
drew DeRoberts — are any indication, it’ll
be stylistically all over the map while hav-
ing a strong roots-music core. “Leaving
Love Behind” is a heartfelt piano ballad,
while “Someone I Used to Know” has a
grand, dance-pop-inspired vibe. And “Need
This,” which came out in mid-August, is a
firecracker, with frantic riffing and fast-
talking verses from Brown.
“That one was a lot of fun,” says Manga-
no. “We got to work with a handful of dif-
ferent producers [on ‘The Owl’], and that
one was with Andrew DeRoberts. He ap-
proached the song from a different perspec-
tive — he was all about keeping the energy
up high and playing with sounds that we
hadn’t tried before.”
Upon their return to the Boston area,
Cook and Mangano, families in tow, will hit
up kid-friendly attractions and homes of
beloved foodstuffs. “I’ll be sad if I leave Bos-
ton without having a cannoli from Modern
[Pastry],” says Cook. Mangano, meanwhile,
will head underground to evoke one of his
strongest Boston memories.
“Getting to ride the T — just to walk
down in a station and smell it and hear it,”
says Mangano. “That was my first introduc-
tion to Boston; my first day there, I was go-
ing in the T. All the memories will come
flooding back when that happens.”Maura Johnston can be reached at
[email protected].with costar Lady Gaga, co-
wrote songs for and co-pro-
duced the blockbuster’s sound-
track. And yes, that’s Lukas
Nelson & Promise of the Real
rocking in the movie as Maine’s
backing band.
Cooper isn’t alone in notic-
ing something special about
Nelson — formerly known as
“Willie’s son” — and his band.
Their star is on the rise.
Now one of Young’s regular
touring bands, Promise of the
Real backed the singer and Bob
Dylan in their much-hyped du-
ets in Hyde Park, London, and
Kilkenny, Ireland, this summer.
The Rolling Stones tapped the
band to open for them on some
of their recent dates. So have
the Who. This weekend, they’ll
open Zac Brown Band’s two
shows at Fenway Park.
When we reach the band,
they’re on the tour bus — home
away from home these days —
on their way to a gig in the
Hamptons. Nelson sounds a bit
tired, and who can blame him?
(Asked about their recent date
at the Newport Folk Festival, he
says, “It’s a blur. It’s all a blur.”)
His band plays about 250
shows a year, and they’ve
earned a reputation for leaving
it all onstage.
It was, after all, Nelson’s
crackling energy that caught
Cooper’s eye.
“We’re touring constantly.
It’s just kind of a lifestyle we
have. We prefer it that way,”
says Nelson, 30, and the line
smacks of his dad’s sentiments
in “On the Road Again.”
“You see a new thing every
day,” he says. “Or at least a new
hotel.”
Nelson and Promise of the
Real — bassist Corey McCor-
mick, drummer Anthony
LoGerfo, percussionist Tato
Melgar, multi-instrumentalist
Logan Metz — have studied at
the feet of Young and Crazy
Horse. Even the band’s name is
inspired by Young’s lyrics from
1974’s “Walk On.”
Sonically, they’re an amal-
gam of their heroes: the
thwacking drums and rangy,
whining guitar of Young and
Crazy Horse. Nelson’s twangy,
taut vocals channel Tom Petty,
though at times he sounds just
like his dad. (Check YouTube
for his cover of “My Own Pecu-
liar Way”.)
The title of their new album,
“Turn Off the News (Build a
Garden),” might sound like an
homage to John Prine’s “Span-
ish Pipedream,” when Prine
sings “Blow up your TV/ Throw
away your paper/ Go to the
country, build you a home/
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of
peaches/ Try an’ find Jesus on
your own.”
But when asked about a con-
nection, Nelson says: “Oh! No, I
didn’t know he had one like
that. But that makes sense be-
cause I feel like he’s my spirit
animal, so there you go.”
While Prine’s song advo-
cates living off the grid, Nel-
son’s is a “call to action.”
“It’s an album designed to
connect people and encourage
people to turn off [their]
phones and TVs for a second
and go out and be part of their
communities and get to know
their neighbors. And vote. And
actually do things, instead of
watching the news and sitting
around doing nothing,” he says.
“Do something. But when I say
that, I’m talking to myself.
uNELSON
Continued from Page G1
That’s how I am with all my
songs. I can turn them around
and point them at me.”
When we ask to talk to an-
other band member on the bus,
Nelson says: “Hold on, let me
see if anybody’s awake.”
McCormick is up.
Of the band’s recent rise, he
says “it’s been a crazy huge
wave, mainly in thanks to Un-
cle Neil.”
“The earliest music that I
heard was Neil Young. The first
guitar song I learned was ‘Nee-
dle and the Damage Done,’ ”
McCormick says. “So to be on-
stage and playing those songs
— sometimes I close my eyes
and I’ll be a little kid in my
dad’s truck, and I open my eyes
and I’m onstage actually sing-
ing those songs. It’s emotional
for me sometimes because my
dad passed away about seven
or eight years [ago], and he
didn’t get to see this.”
Being Young’s bassist is “in-
credible. It’s a little like walking
a tightrope musically, for me.
Never knowing what we’re go-
ing to play onstage. It makes it
interestingandsometimes
stressful,” he says. “I gotta
know over 200 songs at any
moment.”
Nelson was born on Christ-
mas Day 1988, in Austin, Texas,
and grew up in Hawaii. The
longtime surfer wrote his first
song, “You Were It,” around age- Dad Willie recorded it on
his 2004 album, “It Always Will
Be.”
“I was sitting in the school
bus and this song started play-
ing in my head and I realized
nobody had written it yet,” he
says.
Willie “loved it. He thought
it was beautiful and that gave
me confidence to keep writing.”
His pig-tailed, pot-smoking
legend of a dad, 86 and still
rocking, is one of his heroes.
That’s hard to miss in conversa-
tion. “Every moment I’m with
him is my favorite moment,”
Nelson says.
“He inspired me, and he
never pushed me into [guitar],
he just sort of lived the life he
was living and that became the
way I lived. And I’m grateful for
it because a lot of people have
been touched in a good way by
him being on this planet. And
one can only hope that that
would be your legacy.”
Willie — along with Young,
Margo Price, Sheryl Crow, Kes-
ha, Shooter Jennings, brother
Micah Nelson, and more —
guest star on POTR’s new al-
bum.
Nelson’s favorite moment of
life on the road so far — and
this is a guy who shared a bill
with a Beatle at Desert Trip —
involves family: “The one best
time I ever had out there play-
ing music was when Dad came
to join us with Neil when we
were out in Italy. He came on-
stage and we all sang together.
Dad and my mom and my
brother — my whole family was
there.
“Music has brought us to-
gether” as a family, says the gui-
tarist, who joined his dad’s
band as a teenager. “I knew if I
started to play music and I real-
ly got good at it, then I could al-
ways kinda hang around —
we’d always have a reason to be
around each other. Because I
knew he wouldn’t quit the
road.”
Lauren Daley can be reached at
[email protected]. She
tweets @laurendaley1.DIEGO PERNIAAt Fenway, Zac Brown Band
hasawinningstreakgoing
ZACBROWNBAND
With Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
At Fenway Park, Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 6:30
p.m. Tickets $47.50 and up. 877-733-7699,
http://www.redsox.comStars align for
Nelson, Promise
of the Real
MIKE LAWRIE/GETTY IMAGESLukas Nelson at the Newport Folk Festival in July.
‘Iactuallyspent
agoodportionof
thetimetryingtonot
lookout,becauseitwas
sooverwhelming.’
MATT MANGANO,
bassist for the Zac Brown Band,
on performing at Fenway
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