Sam Hunt @ Fiddler's Green Amphitheater – Post Concert Depression

Sam Hunt crushed his show at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater on August 2, 2024 in Greenwood Village, Colorado. With George Birge and Russell Dickerson warming up the crowd, it was one hell of a show.

George Brige

A former member of the driving country-pop duo Waterloo Revival, George Birge went solo in 2021. Gaining a viral hit with “‘Beer Beer, Truck Truck,'” that wound up as a endorsement of country cliches. Birge continued to find clever ways to spin familiar country tropes on his eponymous 2022 EP. Especially on the slow-burning single “Mind on You.” Which became a hit in late 2023, well over a year after its initial release.

A native of Austin, Texas, George Birge was drawn to music as a teenager. Birge learned how to play, sing, and write country music as part of a duo. When he returned to Austin after graduating college in 2013, he reignited his partnership with Cooper. Which developed the duo Waterloo Revival & signed to Big Machine Records. They had a pair of modest Country Airplay hits in 2015. “Hit the Road” and “Bad for You” — before jumping to Show Dog-Universal in 2016. Over the next few years, they continued to release singles and EPs, finally calling it a day early in 2021.

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Russell Dickerson

Belonging to a class of country singers who slyly incorporate modern R&B rhythms into their country-pop. A class that also features Sam Hunt, Russell Dickerson first started to gain traction with the single “Yours.” The song hit number one on the Country Airplay charts in 2017, starting a series of three Country chart-toppers for Dickerson (“Blue Tacoma” and “Every Little Thing” followed in 2018) that set up the 2020 release of his second album, Southern Symphony. Two years later, he returned with his eponymous third long-player, which included the hit “She Likes It.” The summery EP, Three Months Two Streets Down, appeared in 2023.

As a native of Nashville, Dickerson grew up in the thick of Music City and by the time he hit college, he knew he wanted to pursue music professionally. He completed a degree in music at Belmont University and in 2010 scored representation with Creative Artists Agency, who helped him land a publishing deal in addition to repping him as a performer. Dickerson’s first attempt at a solo career — 2011’s “That’s My Girl” — didn’t go anywhere, but in 2013, “Green Light” became a hit on satellite radio. Over the next couple of years, Dickerson’s music became poppier, a makeover that paid off once “Yours” became a country radio hit in late 2015, leading to the release of the Yours EP in 2016.

The EP expanded into a full-length album of the same name the following year, which reached number five on Billboard’s Country Albums Chart and landed a pair of hits with “Blue Tacoma” and the gold-selling single “Every Little Thing.”

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Sam Hunt

Sam Hunt marks a generational shift in country, both in music and business. He slips hip-hop phrasing and modern R&B rhythms into country-pop, signaling a progression from the boisterous bro-country that had previously defined the 2010s. “Leave the Light On” introduced this blend in 2014, and it became a smash, the first of his many number one singles on the country chart. This success paled in comparison to 2017’s “Body Like a Back Road,” which spent months at number one and broke the record for the number of weeks in the top spot. Released independently, not as part of an album, “Body Like a Back Road” showed that Hunt’s rise was fueled by a mastery of the digital marketplace.

“Body Like a Back Road” would eventually anchor his sophomore long-player, 2020’s Southside, a record that added to his string of number one Country Airplay hits. That streak extended in 2021 with “23,” the first single from his third album; “Water Under the Bridge” provided another taste of this project in late 2022, with “Outskirts” appearing in 2023.

Initially, Hunt didn’t plan to sing for a living. A native of Cedartown, Georgia, he excelled at sports, specializing in football. His time as a high school quarterback was acclaimed — he earned a nomination for Wendy’s High School Heisman trophy — and he enrolled at Middle Tennessee State University in 2003. Hunt didn’t play much in either the 2003 or 2004 seasons, so he transferred to the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2005, where he graduated in 2007. During his time at UAB, he began to teach himself how to play guitar and sing, so when his 2008 tryout for the Kansas City Chiefs didn’t go anywhere, he decided to head to Nashville to pursue a career in music.

pulled from AllMusic