RICK de YAMPERT
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
Never mind that country singers Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry sing about toning down their hell-raising on their latest album, "Back When I Knew It All."
If there's a party in Daytona, there's a good chance the duo, who bill themselves as Montgomery Gentry, are going to be here. The lads will perform their fourth concert in the area in as many years when they play at the Beam Bash on Feb. 13 at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach.
Stomping out of their native Kentucky in 1999, the duo juiced the country music scene by spiking honky-tonk music and rowdy country with shots of Lynyrd Skynyrd-sized swagger. That brew resulted in such hits as "Hillbilly Shoes," "She Couldn't Change Me," "Speed" and "Hell Yeah."
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
Never mind that country singers Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry sing about toning down their hell-raising on their latest album, "Back When I Knew It All." If there's a party in Daytona, there's a good chance the duo, who bill themselves as Montgomery Gentry, are going to be here. The lads will perform their fourth concert in the area in as many years when they play at the Beam Bash on Feb. 13 at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach.
Stomping out of their native Kentucky in 1999, the duo juiced the country music scene by spiking honky-tonk music and rowdy country with shots of Lynyrd Skynyrd-sized swagger. That brew resulted in such hits as "Hillbilly Shoes," "She Couldn't Change Me," "Speed" and "Hell Yeah."
A bit of the "Theme From the Dukes of Hazzard" became their unofficial
credo: "Just good ol' boys doing a little bit more than the law will
allow."
Montgomery told The News-Journal before the duo's 2006 concert here that they had experienced "quite a few" memorable moments in the Daytona area "but I don't know if we can put it on radio or print it in the paper. I love Daytona. People down there are living life and I love it."
But "Back When I Knew It All" includes the song "I Pick My Parties," a collaboration with Toby Keith which finds the threesome singing such sentiments as: "I don't go out all the time, what kind of fool do you think I am? Gotta be at work by seven, I should be getting home. I used to do this all the time, but now I really don't. I pick my parties, that's what I really do. I wish I could hit 'em all but I got to pick and choose. I'd be pushing up daisies if I did it every day of the week."
However, the lads also confess in the same song: "Sometimes the parties pick me."
That must be the case with the duo's local appearances. Their gigs here have coincided with Speed Weeks, Bike Week and Biketoberfest.
But "Parties" isn't the only song on the new album about growing older and wiser. The title track features chiming, electric 12-string guitars worthy of the Byrds, and the lyrics: "I've done some growing up. I'll never be as smart as I once was back when a pitcher of beer and a couple shots made me bulletproof. Back when 'God' was a name I used in vain to get a point across when I got ticked off. Lord, I'm learning so much more than back when I knew it all."
"We keep to our roots," Montgomery says on the duo's MySpace site. "We'll always talk about the good, the bad, the ugly and the party on the weekend. We'll always include the Man Upstairs and our American heroes."
The concert will benefit the Florida chapter of Operation Homefront, an organization that provides support and morale boosts to U.S. troops and their families.
Montgomery told The News-Journal before the duo's 2006 concert here that they had experienced "quite a few" memorable moments in the Daytona area "but I don't know if we can put it on radio or print it in the paper. I love Daytona. People down there are living life and I love it."
But "Back When I Knew It All" includes the song "I Pick My Parties," a collaboration with Toby Keith which finds the threesome singing such sentiments as: "I don't go out all the time, what kind of fool do you think I am? Gotta be at work by seven, I should be getting home. I used to do this all the time, but now I really don't. I pick my parties, that's what I really do. I wish I could hit 'em all but I got to pick and choose. I'd be pushing up daisies if I did it every day of the week."
However, the lads also confess in the same song: "Sometimes the parties pick me."
That must be the case with the duo's local appearances. Their gigs here have coincided with Speed Weeks, Bike Week and Biketoberfest.
But "Parties" isn't the only song on the new album about growing older and wiser. The title track features chiming, electric 12-string guitars worthy of the Byrds, and the lyrics: "I've done some growing up. I'll never be as smart as I once was back when a pitcher of beer and a couple shots made me bulletproof. Back when 'God' was a name I used in vain to get a point across when I got ticked off. Lord, I'm learning so much more than back when I knew it all."
"We keep to our roots," Montgomery says on the duo's MySpace site. "We'll always talk about the good, the bad, the ugly and the party on the weekend. We'll always include the Man Upstairs and our American heroes."
The concert will benefit the Florida chapter of Operation Homefront, an organization that provides support and morale boosts to U.S. troops and their families.
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