Yacht Rock Revue Brings "PRIMETIME" to Ozawa Hall

June 21, 2:30pm | Lenox, MA

Yacht Rock Revue plays Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood on June 21 with their new "PRIMETIME" production—a show the ten-piece Atlanta band describes as their most ambitious yet, while keeping the intimacy and audience interaction that defined their earliest club shows.

The band started in a basement in Atlanta in 2007 as two guys who loved the smooth, soft-rock sound of late '70s and early '80s radio — Steely Dan, Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins—at a moment when that sound was still considered a guilty pleasure. They're widely credited with the music's reconsideration over the past decade and a half. What was once dismissed as soft rock now gets its own festivals and tribute acts, and Yacht Rock Revue is generally understood to be the band that got there first.

Rolling Stone has called them the world's premier soft-rock party band. Along the way they've shared stages with actual yacht rock figures—Robbie Dupree, Elliot Lurie of Looking Glass, Matthew Wilder, John Oates, and the late Eddie Money—and built a devoted fanbase who call themselves Anchorheads.

The band's upcoming album "Escape Artist" leans into the era's lush, sun-soaked production values rather than just covering it, and the lead single "Tropical Illusion"—co-written with and featuring Elliot Lurie—directly pays homage to Looking Glass's 1972 hit "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)." Lurie has said he didn't know who the band was when he first sat in with them twelve years ago in front of 5,000 people in an Atlanta park; he's been a fan and now a collaborator ever since.

Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, 297 West St., Lenox, MA. Tickets at bso.org.