America’s Oldest Brewery is celebrating a special occasion—Yuengling’s 190th anniversary is this weekend. Although normally it’s the birthday recipient’s day to celebrate, Yuengling wants to give back to all of their loyal patrons and show their appreciation with a free summer concert at their Pottsville brewery. Better Than Ezra will be headlining the exciting concert (fireworks will follow after), and the band’s guitarist, Tom Drummond, gave Metro the scoop on what the band has been up to and what to expect this weekend.
Better Than Ezra will headline Yuengling’s free 190th Anniversary Concert this weekend
For those who don’t know, what has the band been up to the past few years?
We put an album out called “All Together Now”, and we had a very successful single on it called “Crazy Lucky”, which is in our Spotify’s top 5 songs. It’s a pretty significant release for us. A guy named Tony Hoffa produced the album– he’s a great producer, he’s just got an amazing amount of credits and we really enjoyed working with him. Really I think our last album was one of our best. We always do a summer tour every year as well, but this year is great because it’s our own headlining tour. We can really spend some time [onstage] and play some songs that we usually don’t get to play.
Are you guys working on a new album at all?
Yeah, we’re starting now to work on a new album, and we are going to play a few new songs at the live show, so that’s exciting. But for the new album, it will probably come out sometime next year— but you know things sometimes take longer than you think. The process has started though, how about that.
When you are on tour, what goes into prepping for a show?
Depending on what kind of show it is, you’re going to get a different setlist. You know, we could play more deeper cuts or with the Yuengling concert we are going to play more hits and covers– which helps to get everybody in a good mood and celebrating. But we are also not afraid to throw out the setlist depending on the vibe, we can always switch gears and move onto something else. We’ve been doing this for thirty-something years, so we are pretty good at judging the audience and knowing what we should do. We are playing a bunch of songs on this tour that we haven’t played for years, so that’s really fun for us to switch up the set so it doesn’t get stale.
Overall what would you tell someone to expect from at the concert this weekend?
Expect a good time—as opposed to a moody band who’s going to be dark and contemplative. We have those kinds of songs, but we are going to stick to the hits and the select covers that make people smile. We want to have fun too, we like to get people up onstage and keep it light.
Anything else you would want to be mentioned about the free Yuengling concert?
One thing I will say, I’m a member of a group in New Orleans called Hogs for the Cause and Yuengling has been a huge sponsor for them. The group provides pediatric cancer housing in New Orleans and it’s just really an amazing charity that has come together in the last few years. Yuengling has really been apart of that, it’s very special.
If you go: July 13, 8 pm, Yuengling’s Pottsville Brewery, 420 Mahantongo St., Pottsville, free, yuengling.com
