Neal McCoy leaves ’em all happy!

Photos by Mary Jane Farmer — Click on the link below for more photos

Neal McCoy and his fabulous band played Thursday night, (Sept. 22, 2016) at the Four Rivers Outreach fundraising banquet, held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Sherman/Denison. Now, there’s many performers who bring a powerful and perfect concert every time they play, but few who also bring tasteful and deep-rooted humor and fun along with it. Neal McCoy did just that.

Neal has a way of including his audience in his concerts, especially private parties like this particular event was… open to anyone, but banquet ticket required. He brought one lady in who knew the title of his most recent CD You Don’t Know Me. Now, she was in the way back of the room, but he spotted her instantly when she raised her hand. And he teased and high-fived another person in the crowd, challenging that she knew the lyrics to all his songs. She pretty well did… maybe missed one of the newer ones. And this writer/photographer (there at the request of Four Rivers Outreach, and so working) got the brunt of his humor when I got up from the front table to go to the back of room and get those pix with the crowd in front of stage… “Why are you leaving… you haven’t even heard the next song yet?”  Then, he posed for my camera, and that comic picture is probably easy to find here.

The crowd cracked up. The crowd cracked up a lot, even at his cornball jokes (lovingly calling them ‘cornball’ because they were crazy, but funny) that he ended by spinning around several times on stage.

But he got serious, too. He was actually crying himself when he sang a song he recorded many years ago, which was written to his wife. I wanted to ask him why the tears, but after the show, the fans (old and new) surrounded him and he stuck with every one of them until every last fan had a photo of them together, or an autograph, or just kind nice words, hugs and handshakes.

One of those spectators, who remained completely unmentioned and quiet, probably at his own request, was Rory Feek, half of the Nashville duo of Joey+Rory who played the same Four Rivers Outreach in a year past. Joey passed away earlier this year.

Just a suggestion — but maybe start saving those pennies and quarters now, to buy a ticket to the 2017 Four Rivers Outreach fundraiser, which is already scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 28.

Just another suggestion — catch a Neal McCoy concert anywhere and everywhere you can. Click on that link for his full schedule, and we’ll try to keep up with it here on Scene In Town’s Live Music Calendar.

For more photos, click here

P.S. I didn’t post any of the crowd pix here, other than Rory’s, because those (and these, too) all go to Four Rivers Outreach.

Tags: featured

Category: *- Features, Other venues