The Rockin’ River Bottom Band, winners of the University Program Council’s second annual Battle of the Bands, will be the opening act for UPC’s 2024 Spring Concert, which will be taking place in April. Both the headlining act as well as the date of the concert are still to be announced.
Will Gordon, the drummer for the RRBB, says that he and his bandmates are looking forward to their April performance, saying, “We’re excited for all of our music, really. There’s a few songs we are looking forward to playing, but we want to keep that a surprise for the concert.” He continued, “Some of the artists [whose] music we plan to include in our set are Cody Johnson, Riley Green, Luke Combs and many others. We have been intentionally picking and choosing songs so we can put on the absolute best show we can, and you might just hear an original song or two that we wrote. We are so thrilled and grateful just to be able to open for the Spring Concert.”
Although the group has seen some immediate success as a cover band, its creation only goes back to a few weeks before its first appearance at the Battle of the Bands. Gordon says it began with the band’s lead vocalist, Brody Gravitt, and two of the band’s guitarists, Jacob Davis and Mark Lowry, who quickly added bassist Patrick Crummie, lead guitarist Josiah McBee and Gordon himself.
Many of the band’s members were already acquainted through the Baptist Campus Ministry at UNA, where Gravitt, Davis and Lowry are all active.
The band’s members come from several different musical backgrounds. Both Gravitt and Gordon found their musical start performing in the church at a young age while others like Lowry began learning from loved ones.
“Individually, we are all gifted musicians,” says Gordon. “but when we come together as a group it’s just so special to be a part of and to hear the music that we get to make together.”
With some of the band’s members approaching graduation within the next few years, Gordon says that he is not worried about the future of the band. He says, “Our plan right now is to keep on doin what we love together for as long as we can. Some of us will be graduating this year and next year, but we don’t see that as an issue that will hinder us from playing together.”
After the Spring Concert, Gordon says that the band will continue to perform on smaller stages as well, saying, “We go live on instagram every so often to take requests and jam […] We are wide open for booking for any fraternities, sororities, parties or anything else you might need live music at; we’re your guys. For right now, we’ll be practicing to bring the house down at the Spring Concert in April and we can’t wait ‘til then!”
