NEW ORLEANS, LA. (Sawyer Brown Official Website) - It may've rained a little bit on the parade, but nothing could dampen the spirits of Mark Miller & the men of
Sawyer Brown - hands down country's good-time party band - at this year's Orpheus Krewe Mardi Gras celebration. With a live crew from WDSU, New Orleans' NBC affiliate, on their float, the ACM and CMA Award winners rolled down St Charles and throughout the streets of the Crescent City throwing beads and cups to the throngs of people lining the parade route.
"They say they know how to throw a party at Mardi Gras - and we came to see what it was all about," says frenetic frontman Mark Miller, who's been known to whip a crowd or two into a frenzy. "And when you look around at all the outfits, you wonder how they found the costumes from some of our early tours..."
Naturally Sawyer Brown more than did things their own way - making the ride about so much more than merely throwing beads to the throng. After starting the evening at New Orleans legendary Tipitinas, they got a bystander to run into a Kentucky Fried Chicken along the route - and bring the band a bucket of chicken. Then Miller agreed to swap a request for song from a reveler - trading a verse and a chorus of "Some Girls Do" - for a bottle of water.
"Hey, you do what you gotta do," laughs the man who wrote "Some Girls Do," "The Walk," "The Dirt Road," "Thank God For You," "Hard To Say" and "Drive Me Wild." "And it's as much in the spirit of the deal - will they do this? Should I sing for a request? Anyway, the security guys on our float said having chicken delivered to the float was a first in terms of all the Mardi Gras they'd done."
Miller was in athletic enough shape to able to hurl strings of plastic up to third floor balconies - and dead-aim at kids leaning out of third story windows - much to the crowds' delight. And when the Mayor of New Orleans toasted the hardest working band in country music as their float passed the city's reviewing stand - then said "We've shown you Mardi Gras, now show us what you've got," the singer/songwriter busted a spontaneous move that brought down the collective throng in the bleachers.
And once the floats rolled into New Orleans' Convention Center, the band kicked off Orpheus' celebration with a revved up "Six Days On The Road," a torqued "Keep Your Hands To Yourself," which had the crowd shrieking along, and a blistering call-and-response rendition of "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand." Then anarchy broke out onstage as Greg "Hobie" Hubbard shanghaied Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good To Me" followed by new guitarist Shayne Hill hijacking the Eagles "Take It Easy" to the Telecaster-slinging Miller's chagrin.
"We came. We tossed. We rocked. And we had bread pudding. They say there's nothing like it - and they're right. Mardi Gras is crazy, so naturally we fit right in."
Look for the band's Mardi Gras high jinks on CMT's "Insider" as well as their revival-on-a-hill, $40,000 worth of fireworks "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" video on both CMT: Country Music Television and Great American country - as well as hear the single featuring sacred steel sensation Robert Randolph cropping up on your local radio station. Keep Your Hands To Yourself arrives in stores May 17th - making the almost 4 year wait for new Sawyer Brown music almost over.
