Uncle Kracker rocks Foster Park to end Summer Concert Series

The sun was hanging low in the sky before the final Kokomo Summer Concert Series show began. The green space in front of the Performing Arts Pavilion in Foster Park was filling in quickly.

Stepping on to the stage, Z92.5 host Rob Rupe announced the show’s opener, RVSHVD, would be on soon. Uncle Kracker would follow.

Audience members in the front row, who Rupe said had been there since 3 p.m., let out a hearty cheer. Others in the crowd visited food vendors to grab donuts, burgers and beers before the show began.

RVSHVD opened the set with a rock-forward country tune. Halfway through his song “Cottonmouth,” the band broke into 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite.”

Half an hour into the set, the crowd had grown to more than 1,000 people. More people kept arriving as he played “For the Streets” and covered “Folsom Prison Blues.”

When he saw a kid dancing in front of the pavilion, RVSHVD invited the child to join him on stage. The two danced together, while RVSHVD hyped the kid up and the crowd let out enthusiastic cheers.

“Y’all made my first show in Kokomo amazing,” RVSHVAD said before closing his set with “Shoebox Money.” He added, “Thank you all.”

After giving high fives to his family, the child returned to the stage to dance some more. A handful of other young audience members joined him, one holding a puppy, before the band played their final notes.

With the sun setting and the temperature dropping into the 50s, the crowd was dotted with hoodies and beanies. Rupe appeared on stage again to inform the audience there were just two shirts left at the Uncle Kracker merch stand — everything else had sold out.

It was dark before Uncle Kracker got one stage, but that didn’t stop the audience from spotting him riding up to the pavilion on a golf cart.

The crowd erupted in applause before he was able to take his first step on stage.

The musician opened with “Nobody’s Sad On A Saturday Night,” singing to a crowd that could rival a Haynes Apperson Festival concert turnout. Foster Park attendees turned into a chorus when he broke out into “Follow Me,” his highest charting single.

“Kokomo, what a cool town you guys have here,” the Detroit-based singer said.

Later in the set, he performed his first single “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.”

“If you haven’t heard it, it’s because it tanked,” the musician said. “But we still play it.”

The tune was followed by his newest single, “Beach Chair,” which was released May 24 and opens with the line “Heading down to Kokomo.” He finished the main part of the show with his Dobie Gray cover, “Drift Away,” which held the top ranking on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart for a then-record breaking 28 weeks.

After a brief break off stage, the singer returned to the audience shouting “Kracker” for an encore.

He performed 2009’s “Smile,” which was certified as a platinum single in 2018, before closing with a cover of Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long.” He hurried to his tour bus before the band finished the finale, marking the end of this year’s Summer Concert Series.