Above photos courtesy of @ole60music on Instagram
On Thursday, August 27, chart-topping band Ole 60 brought its Off the Grid Tour to Columbia's
Township Auditorium with special guests 80 Acres and The Stews.
Ole 60, an alt-country band from Hawesville, Kentucky, 75 minutes southwest of
Louisville, got its start in a backyard shed. Lead vocalist Jacob Ty Young and guitarist
Tristan Roby formed a band as childhood friends, eventually adding the remaining five
members of the group on bass, drums, steel guitar, banjo and mandolin.
The band released its debut, four-song EP, "Three Twenty-Four," in late August 2023.
Track three, titled "Smoke & a Light," quickly garnered attention online, and in early
2024, the track topped Spotify's U.S. Viral 50 chart. That chart appearance helped lead
to Ole 60 being signed by Grey Area Records just a couple of months later and
nominations for two People's Choice Country Awards.
Exactly one year after performing to a crowd of just 100 fans, in January 2025, Ole 60
made its debut at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Since its Opry debut, Ole 60 has
performed on and completed a pair of tours, including the Outta My Way Tour, which
stopped at Columbia's The Senate in April 2025. Ole 60 currently has just one album released, the 11-track "Smokestack Town," which
was the name of its second headlining tour that spanned earlier this year.
Newly established country-punk-rock-group, 80 Acres, got the show underway on
Thursday night. The show at Township Auditorium marked the group's first show
opening for Ole 60 on this tour. Fronted by country singer Dylan Marlowe, 80 Acres put
out the first release of its discography, a five-song, self-titled EP. Of the five songs,
"Mess We Made," featuring country rock group Treaty Oak Revival, which headlined
Colonial Life Arena in February, has been streamed almost five times more than the
next most-popular song, "Least You Could Let Me Do."
80 Acres kicked off the show right at 7 p.m., walking out to online hit "Wait at the Gate,"
which, arguably, is the song that put the group on the map. The band played each of the
five songs on its self-titled EP but broke up the set with a cover of "My Hero" by Foo
Fighters.
Prior to the concert, I had seldom listened to the genre's newest group, but despite
this, I enjoyed hearing the new music from familiar voices. Just four hours before it went
on, I kicked off "The Highway Hour," my weekly show on WUSC, playing "Boys Back
Home," a song that features Marlowe. While he didn't play his hit with Dylan Scott this
time, I hope to see 80 Acres again in the future.
After a 25-minute intermission, "9 to 5," the late Dolly Parton's biggest hit, played over
the speakers, and The Stews came out for its opening act. The four-man group formed
at Auburn University in the fall of 2020 and eventually dropped out of college to pursue
the music dream full time. The band, led by vocalist Preston Hall, kicked off its Thursday
set with "Boogie."
The Stews were on stage for 45 minutes and played just eight songs, averaging over
five and a half minutes per song. The set included a cover of Tom Petty's "You Wreck
Me" and Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." Notably, the sixth song of the set was prefaced
with Hall saying the group was "working on new music," prompting the band to play
"Used To," an unreleased single.
Right at 9:10 p.m., Darude's "Sandstorm" played as Ole 60 prepared to take the stage.
As fans waved their spurs around, the beginning of "Rose" interjected, and the band
began to play. "Rose" has consistently been the opening song of the setlist throughout
the tour, followed by "Dust 2 Dust" and "Can't Take It With You" coming second and
third.
The crowd truly began getting into the show at the beginning of the sixth song, "Next to
You," which has the third-most streams of any song in the band's discography. The first
change in the setlist, compared with previous shows on the tour per Setlist.fm, came
after "Watching Me Bleed." Jacob Ty Young asked fans if they were familiar with Alice in
Chains before the band began to cover "Nutshell."
One of the best moments of the night happened during the middle of Ole 60 singing my
favorite, and the band's second-most popular song, "Thoughts of You." At the beginning
of the second chorus, a couple on the right side of the pit got engaged. Just a couple of
minutes later, as the band sang its cover of Coldplay's "Yellow," a second proposal
happened. It was a truly magical stretch toward the end of the show.
The last song of the night was the band's most popular, "Smoke & a Light." Before
leaving the stage, Young jumped onto the drummer's stand and started to play the
cymbals before throwing the drumsticks into the crowd. Simultaneously, guitarist Dustin
"Catfish" Faqua took his red electric guitar, turned his back to the crowd and started to
play guitar behind his head. This variability, compared with the rest of the show, was
certainly an awesome way to close out the show.
With the show now in my rearview mirror, it's easy to say that was one of the coolest
shows I've been to. Ole 60 was the 54th concert I've attended in my life and just the
second where the headliner was somewhat of a rock artist, the first being Treaty Oak Revival on Feb.
14, 2026, at Colonial Life Arena. This was also the fourth time I've been to a show at
Township Auditorium, but the first where I sat in the first balcony. Ole 60 puts on a great
show; the crowd gets involved, the openers were good and it was an all-around fun
night.
I highly recommend that anyone considering seeing Ole 60 buys a ticket and gets there
early to support the opening acts. I hope that, in the near future, I'll be back in
the crowd for another Ole 60 show.