Powell Brothers to perform in Moses Lake Aug. 9
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 years, 1 month AGO
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | July 31, 2024 1:20 AM
MOSES LAKE — The Powell Brothers will take the stage at the Centennial Amphitheater at McCosh Park on Aug. 9. as part of Moses Lake’s Summer Concert Series.
The brothers, Taylor Powell and his younger brother, Blake, are usually classified as a country act, but exactly what that means can vary from show to show, said their manager Chad Tolar.
“They’re musically ADD, to tell you the truth,” Tolar said. “If you look at their YouTube and go down that rabbit hole, you’ll see outlaw country, you’ll see traditional modern, contemporary country, you’ll see blues, you’ll see Southern rock, you’ll see covers of The Weeknd. It’s an American country vibe that fits somewhere between Tom Petty and Vince Gill.”
The Powell Brothers were born and raised in the Houston area, sixth-generation Texans, and have been playing together all their lives, Tolar said. They got their start in their early teens, he said, playing at a megachurch alongside Christian acts like Avalon. Both studied on scholarships at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Taylor on drums and Blake on guitar. Taylor handles most of the lead vocals, but the brothers are both pretty versatile instrumentally, Tolar said.
“During the live show, you'll see them play multiple instruments,” he said. “Taylor will get behind the drums for a song, then lead guitar, acoustic guitar. Blake switches over from guitar to bass.”
The Powell Brothers have released an album, three EPs and about a dozen original singles, and pepper their shows liberally with those songs.
“We want to share our original music, but we know that everybody there won’t know all our originals,” Tolar said. “So there’ll be a lot of cover songs. We’ll cover modern country, Keith Urban, old country like Merle Haggard, and then they’ll put in some pop songs, like they’ll cover Bruno Mars. The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ is their closing number. It’s a real rocking twist on that. It’s a show that’s fun for everybody.”
The brothers will have a new album coming out soon, Tolar said, called “Love and Loss,” inspired by the death about a year and a half ago of their father.
The show is part of the Powell Brothers’ western tour, which started in May in New Mexico and will take them through the Northwest to shows in Portland, The Dalles, Port Angeles. This is the sixth year they’ve played the Northwest, Tolar said.
This is the farthest a band has come from for the Summer Concert Series, said Moses Lake Museum & Art Center Program Coordinator Jenni Shelton, who coordinates the shows.
“They reached out to us last summer, and we were able to make it happen this summer to get them here,” Shelton said.
This is the brothers’ sixth tour that’s brought them to the Northwest, Tolar said. In the past they’ve played the Chinook Festival in Naches and the Oregon Jamboree in Sweet Home, Oregon. This will be their first time playing Moses Lake, but Tolar said he hopes it won’t be the last.
“We don’t want to play your area and not come back,” he said. “We want to come back every single year.”
The Powell Brothers
8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9
Centennial Amphitheater, McCosh Park, Moses Lake
Admission is free
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
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