Friday, February 2, 9 p.m.
Rock Island Brewing Company, 1815 Second Avenue, Rock Island IL
As NoDepression.com raved, “If James Brown and Otis Redding had a love child, it would be Josh Hoyer." And the Nebraska-based musician and his Soul Colossal ensemble play RIBCO on February 2 in a show guaranteeing “a sound so big, so funky, so wring-the-sweat-out-of-you energetic that it reaches through the speakers and shakes you until you start moving to its groove.”
A 2017 contestant on the 12th season of NBC's The Voice, the band's vocalist and keyboardist Hoyer formed Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 2012, its lineup composed of some of the area's most accomplished musicians: Benjamin Kushner on guitar, Blake DeForest on trumpet, Mike Keeling on bass, and Larell White on drums. Inspired by the sounds of Stax, Motown, Muscle Shoals, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, the soul/funk/R&B outfit was designed to cross musical boundaries in terms of both style and era, and, as is stated at JoshHoyer.com, “to have the crowd dancing so much they forget even their smallest troubles.”
After years of playing the Midwest circuit, Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal released its self-titled debut album in 2014, followed by 2015's Living by the Miunute and the live album Crooked Raw, which earned nine out of 10 stars from Glide magazine. That year also saw the band initiating its current touring schedule of more than 150 shows a year, including performing opening sets for the likes of George Clinton, Charles Bradley, and Booker T. Jones. Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal also completed its first European tour in April of 2017, capping it with the live-album release from their concert in Brussels, Belgium.
Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal plays locally beginning at 9 p.m., and more information is available by calling (309)793-1999 or visiting RIBCO.com.
