Back by an orchestra of local musicians, country songwriting duo Brett and Brad Warren of Nashville performed for a near-capacity audience at the Ellen Eccles Theatre on June 26.

LOGAN – It wasn’t the usual bill of fare at the Ellen Eccles Theatre, but a concert by the songwriting Warren brothers of Nashville fame still rocked that venue over the past weekend.

In her brief introduction to the unusual evening of country music on June 26, CacheARTS Executive Director Wendi Hassan praised the concert as the theater’s first ever National Touring Season event held in the summer.

She also thanked the members of the Eccles Theatre’s first packed-house audience since the coronavirus outbreak in spring of 2020 for turning out so confidently to an event without social distancing or face coverings.

Although Brad and Brett Warren toured extensively as an opening act duo for county legend Tim McGraw in the 1990s, they never made it big as recording artists. They did, however, score numerous successes as songwriters for high-profile performers like McGraw, Faith Hill, Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Jason Aldean, Keith Urban and Martina McBride.

The Warrens appeared in Logan as members of the Music City Hit-Makers, a group of songwriters that tour performing acoustic renditions of songs they penned for some of Nashville’s most notable artists.

Their show here opened with the Warrens performing as a duo for about 30 minutes. That set might have been billed as “people you never heard of performing songs you’ve never heard.”

That’s not criticism of the Warrens, but rather a comment on the niching of musical genres and eras that is the norm in commercial radio broadcasting nowadays.

Their performances of those largely unfamiliar tunes were lively and entertaining.

But the songwriters were just getting warmed up. After a brief intermission, the Warrens were joined onstage by a 18-piece orchestra of local musicians who lent a symphonic quality to renditions of the duo’s most popular compositions. The heavily stringed ensemble even featured a harp, which Brad Warren suggested may have been a first for country music.

The show’s second set led off with a musically lush performance of the Warrens’ song “Highway Don’t Care,” which was a Number One hit on country music charts as a duet by Tim McGraw and Taylor Swift.

Backed by the talented local musicians, the Warrens proceeded to run through others of their hit compositions, including the tunes “Every Time I Hear That Song,” “If You’re Reading This,” “Anyway” and “Felt Good on My Lips.”

The show climaxed with a rousing performance of a tune that Brad Warren described as “the dumbest song we’ve ever written and maybe the dumbest country song anybody has ever written.” It was “Red Solo Cup,” which became a Top 10 hit when recorded by Toby Keith.

The Warrens’ appearance was enthusiastically received by the near-capacity audience made up mostly of summer citizens. The songwriters promised to return to Cache Valley anytime they are invited.

The Cache Valley Center for the Arts is an independent non-profit organization that promotes the use of Cache Valley’s publicly owned cultural arts facilities.

Those facilities include the Ellen Eccles Theatre, the Thatcher-Young Mansion and the Bullen Center



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