Montgomery Gentry not acting with their good-time show
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Spirited performance is ‘no act’ at Oklahoma City Zoo Amphitheatre
Eddie Montgomery has a message for people who are curious about Montgomery Gentry’s high-energy, hard-partying live act.
“Oh, honey, no, no, no, it ain’t no act, baby, that’s who I am. I’m just a country boy and I love living life and I’m gonna sing about the good, the bad, the ugly, and the party on the weekend, darlin’,” Montgomery drawled in his distinctive baritone during a phone interview this week from his Perryville, Ky. home.
Montgomery Gentry, the hitmaking country duo of Montgomery and fellow singer Troy Gentry, will join Gary Allan and Oklahoma native Keith Anderson tonight at Country Fest 2008. The show will be the final concert of the season at the Zoo Amphitheatre.
“If you do have to work the next day, you might want to call in sick ’cause we have been known to lock the gates, bolt the doors and party all night long,” Montgomery said with a laugh. “I promise you we’re going to have a lot of fun.”
For the past 10 years, Montgomery Gentry has been scoring hits and making friends – “We don’t call anybody fans,” Montgomery said. “We call ‘em friends” – with their blue-collar outlook, raucous outlaw country anthems and Southern rock spirit.
Montgomery, 45, comes by his working-class attitude honestly. He and his brother, fellow country singer John Michael Montgomery, were raised by a pair of honky-tonk musicians and started playing in the family band at a young age.
“Edrow, he’s just a fun-loving guy,” John Michael Montgomery said, using his nickname for his older brother. “We still look at each other and ourselves as just the same ol’ guys that we always were. We don’t really look at each other as big stars.”
The Montgomery brothers and Gentry started playing together first in the band Early Tymz and then as Young Country, and when John Michael Montgomery got a record deal as a solo artist, Gentry and the elder Montgomery soon started playing as a duo.
“Growing up in the honky-tonks, man, we’d sing to everybody coming in. We’d sing to the people that come in that would lose their jobs; we’d sing to the people that were getting promotions. We’d sing to people that were getting divorced; we’d sing about people that were getting married,” Eddie Montgomery said.
The everyman approach has helped Montgomery Gentry achieve longevity. “Back When I Knew It All,” the first single and title track of the duo’s new album, raced to the top of the country charts faster than any other releases in their career.
Released in June, the new album features rabble-rousers “One in Every Crowd,” which Montgomery co-wrote, and “I Pick My Parties,” a duet with Oklahoma star Toby Keith. The duo joined Keith this summer for his “Biggest & Baddest Tour.”
“As far as I know right now, it’s the No. 1 tour of the summer,” Montgomery said. “I know that we were No. 1 in alcohol sales … and I know we were No. 1 in the partying. As far as I know, we were No. 1 all the way around.”
But like all their albums, “Back When I Knew It All” has a philosophical and spiritual side. Along with the title track, songs such as “Roll With Me” and “God Knows Who I Am,” Montgomery’s other co-writer credit on the album, tap into the duo’s strong faith.
“We’re human. We’re made after God and we believe in the man upstairs very much and we believe in living life. And he puts you on here and he expects you to be responsible and have fun and live life and make choices,” he said.
He added, “You never know when you’re number’s gonna come up, so live it to its fullest. I mean, this is the greatest country in the world: we can say, we can be and we can dream as big as we want to.”
In concert
Who: Montgomery Gentry and Gary Allan with special guest Keith Anderson.
When: 5:15 p.m. today. Doors open at 4 p.m.
Where: Zoo Amphitheatre, 2101 NE 50.
Tickets: $127.50, $52 and $42.
Information: (800) 511-1552 or www.zooamp.com.
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