Carowinds Summer Music Fest

Schedule:

9:00 PM: Sugar Ray at Paladium Amphitheatre

Beyond sales of 10 million records, four top 10 songs, hundreds of millions of streams, and millions of tickets sold, Sugar Ray-co-founded by Mark McGrath [vocals] and Rodney Sheppard [lead guitar]-embody the endless summer of popular music and culture.

How many artists still pack sheds a whole generation removed from their genesis? How many acts can claim sharing the stage with The Rolling Stones, KISS, and Sex Pistols, collaborating with Run-DMC, and being interpolated by Post Malone? Just Sugar Ray…

1994’s Lemonade & Brownies took the guys around the world and earned cult classic status for its frenetic and unpredictable hybrid. It set the stage for FLOORED in 1997. The latter’s immortal lead single “Fly” [feat. Super Cat] made them a household name.

21 years down the road, Post Malone incorporated “Fly” in “Sugar Wraith” on the triple-platinum beerbongs & Bentleys. Helmed by GRAMMY® Award-winning producer David Kahne [Sublime, Paul McCartney, The Strokes], FLOORED earned the band’s first gold plaque and eventually went double-platinum.  

Two years later, 14:59 bowed in the Top 20 of the Billboard Top 200, went triple-platinum, and gave us “Someday,” “Falls Apart,” and their second #1 “Every Morning.” In 2001, Sugar Ray crashed the Top 200 at #6 as “When It’s Over” staked out a spot on the charts. It added another platinum plaque to their walls. Enjoying a renaissance, Sugar Ray headlined the Under the Sun Tour 2013-2015. They inked a deal with BMG in 2019 and dropped their seventh full-length, Lil Yachty.

7:30 PM: Better Than Ezra at Paladium Amphitheatre

The best songs, records, and bands transport you back to the first moment you heard them each and every time they play.

Whether you caught a house party gig after Better Than Ezra formed in 1988 at Louisiana State University, heard “Good” on the radio once it hit #1 in 1995, became a fan following Taylor Swift’s famous cover of “Breathless” in 2010, or saw them headlining sheds in 2018, you most likely never forgot that initial introduction to the New Orleans quartet founded by Kevin Griffin [lead vocals, guitar, piano] and Tom Drummond [bass, backing vocals].

Those hummable melodies, unshakable guitar riffs, and confessional lyrics quietly cemented the group as an enduring force in rock music. How many acts can boast being the inspiration of a classic Saturday Night Live skit? Very few. Named one of the top “100 Greatest Alternative Artists of All Time” by Billboard, Better Than Ezra released their last single “Grateful” in 2018 and are currently in the studio working on new music.

6:20 PM: Tonic at Paladium Amphitheatre

The story of Tonic revolves around the longstanding, close brotherhood shared among members Emerson Hart [vocals, guitar], Jeff Russo [lead guitar], and Dan Lavery [bass].

Since 1996, the GRAMMY® Award-nominated multiplatinum trio has consistently delivered anthemic and undeniable rock fashioned from eloquent songcraft, lyrical honesty, and unshakable melodies. As the story goes, Emerson and Jeff linked up together in Los Angeles as Tonic during 1994, with Dan joining the group in 1996.

They released their platinum full-length debut, Lemon Parade, followed by the single, “You Wanted More,” which served as the lead-off from the platinum Original Soundtrack Album for American Pie and Tonic's second full-length, Sugar. In between a marathon of touring, they released Head On Straight in 2002. The single “Take Me As I Am” received a GRAMMY® Award nomination in the category of “Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal” as the album vied for “Best Rock Album.”

After a five-year hiatus, the three-piece returned to the charts on the heels of Tonic in 2010. To honor the 20th Anniversary of their debut release, they re-recorded the seminal Lemon Parade acoustically for 2016’s Lemon Parade Revisited.