(House of Blues, Lake Buena Vista FL) There’s something disarmingly honest about a night like this—where the setlist only tells part of the story, and everything in between the songs is what really sticks with you.
On paper, the run from “Beautiful Hate” through “Devil You Know” looks like a fairly standard, high-energy arc, even with the audible jump to “Watch Me Drown” and the late reshuffling. But live, it felt less like a rigid set and more like a guy tracing the outline of his life in real time—messy, nonlinear, and very much earned. The covers—especially the nods to ZZ Top and 2Pac—weren’t just crowd-pleasers; they were breadcrumbs. Even though “La Grange” and “California Love” didn’t ultimately land in the performance, their presence in the orbit says a lot about the band’s DNA: Southern rock grit colliding with hip-hop attitude, all filtered through a modern, genre-blurring lens.
That tension—between swagger and struggle—mirrors the band’s own formation story. You can hear it in the way Montana talks. Not polished, not overly rehearsed, but deeply intentional. When he brings up Elk Park, Montana—the “ranch park community,” the poverty, the four kids—it doesn’t come off like a trope. It feels like a thesis statement. “It ain’t the trailer that makes the trash. It’s the method.” That line alone probably explains more about the band’s ethos than any press bio ever could.
And then there’s Nashville—the almost-ending that turned into a beginning. The way he frames it, you can practically see the clock running out: giving it two years, pushing right up to the edge of walking away, and then somehow, improbably, things crack open. A record deal. A conversation with Charlie Sheen about making a music video. Signing a first major contract at 38, which in this industry might as well be 60. It’s the kind of timeline that strips away any illusion of overnight success.
That same humility carries into how he talks about collaboration. When he mentions cutting a track with Billy Gibbons and Slash, it’s not bragging—it’s still a little bit disbelief. Like he hasn’t fully recalibrated from being the guy hoping for a shot to the guy actually in the room. Same with the reference to working with Jerry Cantrell on “Kinda Like It,” or the shoutout to the guys from Creed. These aren’t name-drops; they’re mile markers.
Even the band intros felt like extensions of that story. A bassist with Nashville roots but a detour through Paris because his dad was opening Disney—and casually, his dad wrote “Cotton Eyed Joe.” A drummer and guitarist tied together by long friendships and unlikely connections, including a thread back to Jimmy Buffett. It reinforces the idea that this band didn’t form in a straight line; it’s a patchwork of lives that somehow converged at the right moment.
What really lands, though, is how often Montana circles back to the brink—the moments he thought it was over. Leaving Nashville at 39, convinced he was done. Eighteen years of his wife standing by while he chased something uncertain. And then “The Devil You Know” hits, and suddenly it’s the song that changes everything, the one that finally puts him on the charts. You can feel the weight of that when he plays it—it’s not just another track, it’s the hinge his whole life swings on.
By the time they close on “Savage,” it doesn’t feel like a victory lap so much as a continuation. The advice he drops—wake up, work hard, don’t quit dreaming—could sound cliché in another context. Here, it lands because he’s clearly lived the version where it almost didn’t work out.
So even with a setlist that zigzags a bit—skipping expected covers, reshuffling the order, jumping into “Watch Me Drown”—the throughline is unmistakable. This is a band built on persistence, shaped by near-misses, and grounded in a kind of sincerity that’s hard to fake. The music hits, sure. But the story behind it hits harder.
On paper, the run from “Beautiful Hate” through “Devil You Know” looks like a fairly standard, high-energy arc, even with the audible jump to “Watch Me Drown” and the late reshuffling. But live, it felt less like a rigid set and more like a guy tracing the outline of his life in real time—messy, nonlinear, and very much earned. The covers—especially the nods to ZZ Top and 2Pac—weren’t just crowd-pleasers; they were breadcrumbs. Even though “La Grange” and “California Love” didn’t ultimately land in the performance, their presence in the orbit says a lot about the band’s DNA: Southern rock grit colliding with hip-hop attitude, all filtered through a modern, genre-blurring lens.
That tension—between swagger and struggle—mirrors the band’s own formation story. You can hear it in the way Montana talks. Not polished, not overly rehearsed, but deeply intentional. When he brings up Elk Park, Montana—the “ranch park community,” the poverty, the four kids—it doesn’t come off like a trope. It feels like a thesis statement. “It ain’t the trailer that makes the trash. It’s the method.” That line alone probably explains more about the band’s ethos than any press bio ever could.
And then there’s Nashville—the almost-ending that turned into a beginning. The way he frames it, you can practically see the clock running out: giving it two years, pushing right up to the edge of walking away, and then somehow, improbably, things crack open. A record deal. A conversation with Charlie Sheen about making a music video. Signing a first major contract at 38, which in this industry might as well be 60. It’s the kind of timeline that strips away any illusion of overnight success.
That same humility carries into how he talks about collaboration. When he mentions cutting a track with Billy Gibbons and Slash, it’s not bragging—it’s still a little bit disbelief. Like he hasn’t fully recalibrated from being the guy hoping for a shot to the guy actually in the room. Same with the reference to working with Jerry Cantrell on “Kinda Like It,” or the shoutout to the guys from Creed. These aren’t name-drops; they’re mile markers.
Even the band intros felt like extensions of that story. A bassist with Nashville roots but a detour through Paris because his dad was opening Disney—and casually, his dad wrote “Cotton Eyed Joe.” A drummer and guitarist tied together by long friendships and unlikely connections, including a thread back to Jimmy Buffett. It reinforces the idea that this band didn’t form in a straight line; it’s a patchwork of lives that somehow converged at the right moment.
What really lands, though, is how often Montana circles back to the brink—the moments he thought it was over. Leaving Nashville at 39, convinced he was done. Eighteen years of his wife standing by while he chased something uncertain. And then “The Devil You Know” hits, and suddenly it’s the song that changes everything, the one that finally puts him on the charts. You can feel the weight of that when he plays it—it’s not just another track, it’s the hinge his whole life swings on.
By the time they close on “Savage,” it doesn’t feel like a victory lap so much as a continuation. The advice he drops—wake up, work hard, don’t quit dreaming—could sound cliché in another context. Here, it lands because he’s clearly lived the version where it almost didn’t work out.
So even with a setlist that zigzags a bit—skipping expected covers, reshuffling the order, jumping into “Watch Me Drown”—the throughline is unmistakable. This is a band built on persistence, shaped by near-misses, and grounded in a kind of sincerity that’s hard to fake. The music hits, sure. But the story behind it hits harder.
RSS Feed