The Beauty of Hootie

Posted By:
Chad A. Hagy, USA, The Beauty of Hootie

The grunge phase was coming to a grinding halt in 1995. Everybody was getting tired of the depressing and angst-filled music that was flooding the mainstream radio waves and they were begging for something happier with a more positive message.

Enter Hootie and the Blowfish.

This was a band of just normal guys that entered the mainstream music scene with their first commercial success – “Cracked Rear View.” From the moment I heard “Hold My Hand” on the radio for the first time, I was intrigued. When I saw the video on VH1 for the first time, I was hooked. I was impressed at the makeup of the band. The lead singer didn’t look like the typical lead singer of a pop band. He was a little chubby, which is what I think appealed to me the most because I was chubby at the time, too. I was just happy to see normal guys in a band who weren’t whining about what their parents did to them or how “the man” has screwed their lives up so bad. It was a refreshing change.

That was also the summer I went to my first concert. It was – you guessed it – Hootie and the Blowfish. I lived in Michigan at the time, but both Michigan dates were sold out by the time I went to get tickets. My only option was to buy tickets for their show in Ohio – a five hour drive. In order to get my friends to go with me, I had to buy tickets for them, too. They weren’t Hootie fans, so I bought their tickets just so I would have somebody to go with. But it ended up being one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. Since then, Hootie and the Blowfish have somehow been involved in many of my major life events, which I’m sure will show up in my future writings somewhere.