This past weekend welcomed the Eli Young Band to the Wolf Den at Mohegan Sun for their first New England stop of 2015. Reports came in from local radio that the line for the first come-first serve venue began at roughly 8:30 am, nearly 12 hours before the country duo took the stage, and for good reason. The Eli Young Band has had great success over the past decade, with 8 tracks hitting the Billboard country charts, three of their singles peaking at number one, and performing at stadiums across the country with superstars Eric Church and Kenny Chesney, most notably their 2012 two-night stand at Gillette Stadium.
As it got closer to show time, the line for the entrance was wrapping around the casino, and as it reached capacity hundreds of fans flocked to the outskirts of the gate, willing to catch a glimpse, something that is a rare occurrence at the Wolf Den. The Eli Young Band took the stage sharply at 8PM, opening with ‘Drink You Up,’ a single off of their new album hitting the shelves March 10th, telling us that we were lucky enough to be one of the first crowds to hear the new song.
A few songs into the show brought the title track to the wildly successful 2014 album, ‘10,000 Town.’ Upon concluding, Mike Eli took the mic to tell the crowd that in the past 15 years, this was the first time that they’ve gotten to take a week off, “So give us a break, we may be a little rusty,” and with a grin looked to the band and proclaimed, “Lets try a new one,” kicking into a rocking rendition of David Lee Murphy’s 1995 hit ‘Dust On The Bottle.’
The band didn’t bring the energy down, going into their latest single, top 20 hit song ‘Dust.’ Taking a break, Mike picked up his acoustic guitar and told the audience, “Here we are at the Mohegan Sun, lets make some mistakes and smile!” with a performance of the song ‘Skeletons,’ leading into their gold certified top 20 hit ‘Always the Love Songs.’ “We know how lucky we are getting to play music for a living. You dream about this your whole life but nobody tells you about the bad part, being away from our families,” is what Mike Eli had to say before starting an emotional performance of ‘Prayer For the Road,’ starting a round of applause to not only servicemen and woman, but to the first responders in the crowd as well.
Regaining their early energy, Mike Eli joking told us, “Tomorrow morning you’ll wake up with a headache, either you drank a little too much, hung out with us after the show, or you did both pretty well,” leading into their latest number one song, ‘Drunk Last Night.’ The humble singer began to confess again how lucky they all are, and if you’re a dreamer like him, the next song goes out to all of us, bringing us into another number one hit, ‘Even If it Breaks Your Heart.’
The band brought it back to their bar band days with a rocking cover of the Steve Miller Band hit ‘The Joker,’ and a cover of a song that should be fresh in the minds of New England country fans, ‘The Thunder Rolls,’ a Garth Brooks hit. Another smile cracked Mike Eli’s face as he asked, “How crazy are we getting tonight?” before kicking into their breakthrough 2011 hit and first number one song, ‘Crazy Girl.’ The crowd wasn’t letting them leave just yet, bringing the band back out for a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s honky-tonk anthem ‘Gimme Three Steps,’ that they recorded for the 2010 tribute album ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’
The Eli Young band brought as big of a crowd as any before to the Mohegan Sun Wolf Den, but with upcoming acts Joel Crouse (2/19), The Cadillac Three (3/1), Native Run (3/5), Love and Theft (3/7), Dylan Scott (3/12), and Dustin Lynch (3/28), it looks like the capacity country based crowds have more to look forward to.