Alt-country singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the “The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart)” last night, performs June 19 at the Verizon Amphitheater in Irvine.
And that's good news.
We're also excited to learn “Weary Kind” co-writer and super producer T Bone Burnett will be producing Bingham's next studio album, due out this year on the venerable Lost Highway label (Ryan Adams, Van Morrison, Lucinda Williams).
But here's the bad part, and, it's a real deal breaker.
]
Bingham and his Dead Horses band ride into Orange County as part of the redneck circus Country Throwdown. It's headlined by Montgomery Gentry, the brain-dead duo best-known for the painfully obnoxious hit “Hell Yeah.”
On the other hand, the lineup also includes Jamey Johnson, a no bullshit singer/songwriter with a burly baritone who recalls prime Waylon Jennings and easily ranks as one of the most gifted, gruff and interesting acts in country music. But is seeing Bingham and Johnson worth having beer spilled on you–and hearing a zillion “hell yeahs!!!”–by the Montgomery Gentry mob?
Little Big Town, Jack Ingram, Eric Church, the Eli Young Band, the Lost Trailers, Heidi Newfield, Jonathan Singleton & the Grove and Emily West are also scheduled to perform. There will be one main stage and two side stages. Tickets are $41.
