Rising country star Thomas Rhett playing at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre on March 9
From a press release:
It was announced today that rising Nashville country music star Thomas Rhett will bring his 2017 “Home Team Tour” to the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre on Thursday, March 9 with special guests Kelsea Ballerini, Russell Dickerson, and Ryan Hurd.
Tickets go on sale next Friday, Oct. 7 at 10 a.m. through the NBT Bank Box Office at Mohegan Sun Arena (255 Highland Park Blvd., Wilkes-Barre Twp.), ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, and charge by phone at 800-745-3000.
Thomas Rhett solidified his move “from a promised next big thing to actually being it” (Noisey) with his platinum-certified sophomore record “Tangled Up,” (The Valory Music Co.), which earned a deluxe edition slated for release on Oct. 28. The album has produced three chart-toppers, including the 2X-platinum, six-week No. 1 hit “Die a Happy Man,” as well as platinum No. 1’s “Crash and Burn” and “T-Shirt.”
The singer/songwriter sparked “an ushering in of country’s future” (Rolling Stone) as he dominates the Nielsen 2016 Mid-Year List with “Tangled Up,” landing in the Top 5 country albums while “Die a Happy Man” was the most streamed song overall with more than 80 million streams. Garnering two CMA nominations for “Die a Happy Man” after earning a Billboard Music Award for “Top Country Song” along with the ACM and ACCA for “Single Record of the Year,” Rhett was also recently chosen as one of five of CMT’s “Artists of the Year.”
Years before he kicked off his career with “It Goes Like This,” a debut album that spawned five Top 40 hits and three No. 1s, Rhett spent his childhood listening to the sounds of FM radio.
“Growing up, there was no such thing as listening to one radio station,” he remembers. Instead, Rhett would regularly flip from one station to another, cranking up a mix of country, pop, R&B, rap, rock, and oldies. It was a tangle of music. Decades later, he’s tipping his hat to those days with “Tangled Up,” an album that mixes the sound of his influences with equal doses of groove, melody, and twang.
Although recorded in his hometown of Nashville, “Tangled Up” was written all over America during a year-long tour in support of his first album. There was something about the highway that made him feel creative. Something about the crowds that made him feel inspired. Something about the sold-out shows that made him want to return to the tour bus and write something exciting. With help from a handful of co-writers, Rhett whipped up a new batch of songs during the hours before soundcheck, after the encore, and during the long rides from one city to the next.
Maybe that’s why “Tangled Up” feels like such an upbeat, energetic record; it was created while his body was still flushed with adrenaline.
“At our shows, there aren’t any rules,” he says. “There’s no such thing as standing still and just singing a song. I love jumping into the crowd. I love to dance. The whole show is very uptempo, high energy, and completely unpredictable.”
You could say the same about “Tangled Up.” Produced by Dan Huff and Jesse Frasure, the album is filled with party anthems, dance tunes, drinking songs, love ballads, and everything in between, all tied together by a dynamic singer who’s unafraid to blur the lines between genres. Some songs take their influence from country stars like Eric Church. Others are more reminiscent of pop idols like Justin Timberlake or Bruno Mars. None of the tracks sound alike, but they do all sound like Thomas Rhett songs.
“I didn’t grow up listening to just one style of music,” he explains, “so I don’t know how to write just one style of music. Whether these songs have more of a pop influence or more of a hip-hop influence or a completely country influence, they all – in some crazy way – cohesively sound like a me song.”
They also sound like hit songs. “Crash and Burn,” the album’s first single, climbed into the Top 10 long before the album’s release, and any number of the remaining tracks – from “South Side,” a groove-heavy song co-written with Chris Stapleton, to “Die a Happy Man,” a heartfelt tribute to Rhett’s wife – could follow its climb up the charts. Meanwhile, songs like “Single Girl” mix his country boy croon with layers of poppy synthesizers, while “Tangled” models itself after Michael Jackson’s dance floor jams.
