After we left Templelive in Fort Smith, the sounds of vocal harmony reverberated through the concert hall at Robinson Center in Little Rock on the evening of Thursday, March 2, as the country’s first vocal band HOME FREE blessed our ears with sensations, piercing feelings of delight that lulled our souls that are felt even now. How is such power even possible? Well, of course, it’s the band’s talent: Adam Rupp is a founding member and the best beatboxer I’ve ever heard; Austin Brown – upper tenor and solo shimmering with high decorative notes; Rob Lundqvist – lead harmonic tenor/tenor and “Sexiest Home Free Singer” according to his Instagram; Tim Faust – superbassist: he is Mariah Carey of low notes; and Adam Chance, a sultry baritone who played a lot during the concert.

When the room gets dark, you see blue lights flashing and you hear the music mix right before you’re hit by the intro to Fishin’ In The Dark/Down in the Boondocks Medley from the Country Evolution album. From there they move on to Road Sweet Road with their new album So Long Dixie, which debuts at number one on the country charts. Then funny MC Tim chats to the audience, asking us what song we want to hear, with the whole group of us screaming randomly. So he replies, “Home Free doesn’t give you what you want. We give you what you need.” They continue my favorite (well, I have a lot of Home Free favorites) Elvira. This type of joke pervades the entire “party” as they serenade us beat after beat.

The other songs of the first half were: Stargazer Lilies, written by the super talented Austin Brown; “The Man of Constant Sorrow”, which grew out of a looper demonstration created by the skilled Adam Rupp; delivered by Folsom Prison Blues with those tense polyphonic train whistles; and then after a little encouragement to buy something, we got a rick roll with what we thought was Ring of Fire, but no, it was Never Gonna Give You Up. These guys make me sad!

The second half was I Won’t Give Up, Everyone Walkin’ This Land (another one of my favorites) and Some Girls Do. Afterwards, Adam Rupp’s jaw-dropping, throbbing-lips vocal solo transports the crowd to the nightclub, an experience that has homemade fries (fans) on their feet to pay homage to his almighty rhythmic spoken word performance. Then comes “Story Time with Tim” when he goes on to tell us that there are light meters at the Robinson Center and he ended up in the dark taking a shower. He blamed Rob and then had to stumble to get the lights back on. How did the story end? With a mental image …. let’s move on. After handing out passes backstage, they hummed John Denver’s Country Road, talked about dreams come true, which led to Dreamer and ended with Ain’t Going Down (til the Sun Comes Up). For an encore, they performed Sea Shanty Medley and Ring of Fire (this time for real).

According to the general opinion of the public, it would be desirable, of course, more songs, but in general everyone liked the show. This makes my third time seeing a HOME FREE gig and this was by far the hardest. Even Tim says, “You may have noticed that we travel with a lot of crap these days.” The stage is littered with glowing levels and Adam Rupp sits upstairs with his looper gear for most of the show. The light show was amazing. I liked the way it bounced along to the beat, sometimes blinding us, but mostly emphasizing the throbbing impulses of the lead rhythm.

HOME FREE then heads to Australia before resuming their US tour. For more information, visit their website at https://homefreemusic.com.

Now I’m waiting for show number 4.

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