Joe’s Bar in Chicago acted as the place of celebration on two accounts on Wednesday August 27^th. Chicago’s country radio station US99 used it as a catalyst to say goodbye to long time program manager Mike Peterson and BNA Recording artists The Lost Trailers used it as the venue to host their CD Release party for their latest BNA Nashville album, “Holler Back.” The latter is why the crowd came out to Joe’s Bar and The Lost Trailers weren’t about to let them down.

Guitarist, Stokes Nielson, came up to microphone and excitedly said, “What’s up Chicago? Y’all ready to Holler Back?” and without making the crowd wait they dove into their current single, which just found it’s way into the top 10, and quickly had the crowd screaming along with them as they bounced around the stage from left to right, front to back. With a rousing yell, “get those hands up,” from lead vocalist Ryder Lee, the crowd followed his instructions and clapped right along with the final chorus of the hit song.

“How you doin’ Chicago?” asked Lee, “When our label asked us where we wanted to do our CD release party there was no other place that came to mind other than Joe’s Bar in Chicago,” he finished as the crowd cheered along and they kicked into “Hey Baby.” Stokes began to jump around influencing some of the crowd to do the same as they dove into the fan favorite and had the crowd eating out of their hands only two songs into their set.

“Where are my cowgirls at?” asked Ryder and was quickly met with the cheers from the mostly female crowd. “Ya know where we’re from we have a different term for them, we call em Dixie Boy Specials,” and they dove into what has obviously become one of the biggest songs amongst their fans from their self-titled album, “Dixie Boy Special.” They wasted no time getting back into showcasing their new material with “Blacktop Road,” which they dedicated to Mike Peterson and explained, “is a song about following your dreams and making that blacktop road a street of gold.”

The crowd ate up the song and cheered as Ryder asked, “what do ya say we play some rock-n-roll to get this started? Y’all ready to sing with us?” It took only the opening notes of John Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good,” the only cover in their set, to get the crowd moving around and singing along with the band as they continued to display an incredible amount of on stage energy.

“This next song is a real important song to us. We went back into the studio and tweaked it here and there for the new album and it’s about being in love in the summer time,” explained Lee as he dove into their updated version of “Summer of Love,” followed quickly by an up-tempo, unreleased song, “Right To Be Wrong,” which they made available on their myspace page as a free download to everyone at this particular show.

“It had been a while since me and Stokes wrote a song together and this one is real special to us as a band because when we sat down to write it, we wrote about all the things that inspired us to start playing in the first place. Ya know like girls shaking their sassafras,” Lee jokingly finished as they dove into “Country Folks (Livin’ Loud),” which more often then not showed the crowd their strong influence from the legendary Alabama.

Stokes, who had been adding a little here and there throughout the show on the microphone, stepped back up to address the crowd. “I have been playing with this guy,” he started as he pointed to Ryder, “since high school and on this next song I think he really did his best vocal he’s got in him.” The crowd cheered along with Stokes as Ryder stepped back up to the microphone. “This song is one of those for anyone that has ever had to fight for their relationship,” he finished as they dove into what is sure to become an instant hit and coincidently their only slower paced song of the evening, “How Bout You Don’t.” 

“When no one really even knew who the heck we were, Willie Nelson picked us out and took us on tour with him and this next song is our ode to Willie. We got any Willie fans here tonight,” asked Stokes who was met quickly with cheers. Lee stepped back to the microphone, “Are my cowgirls ready to shake?” cheers from the females erupted, “Are my boys ready to get loud?,” cheers came from the guys in the crowd, “alright Stokes take it away,” he finished as they dove into “Gravy,” their song about a magic seed to plant that eventually leads to making the money to save the family farm. As they sang the instructions to the cowgirls in the crowd, “put your hands up and start to swirl,” you can see the females following suit and dancing along with the band as they bounced around the stage.

With a quick thank you for making this a great and special night in the history of the band, Stokes asked the crowd, “y’all ready to holler back with us one more time,” and rounded out the set the same way they opened it, with their top 10 hit song, “Holler Back,” and the crowd screamed along with them making this a great ending to a perfectly done show.

The Lost Trailers have definitely arrived and this night is just the first step into solidifying them as one of today’s top country acts. The set flowed perfectly, remained rather upbeat, and they kept a majority of the focus on their excellent new album as expected from a release party. They quickly made their way to the merch table and had no problem staying all night if that’s what it took to make sure everyone had an autograph from the band on their way out the door.

FULL SET LIST

1. Holler Back
2. Hey Baby
3. Dixie Boy Special
4. Blacktop Road
5. Hurts So Good
6. Summer of Love
7. Right To Be Wrong
8. Country Folks (Livin’ Loud)
9. How Bout You Don’t
10. Gravy
11. Holler Back