ERIC HUTCHINSON - Class of 98 Tour

Tickets: $22.50 ($25 at the show)

18+ Valid ID required for entry into venue / Under 18 permitted with parent / $3 Under 21 Surcharge at Door - Accepted forms of ID: State Issued ID or Driver's License, Military ID, Passport.

Eric Hutchinson is an international platinum-selling singer, songwriter and seasoned touring artist. He has performed in all 50 states and has shared the stage with acts such as Jason Mraz, Amos Lee, Ingrid Michaelson, O.A.R., and Michael Franti. His single “Rock & Roll” earned him his first gold record in the United States and the song became a #1 hit in several countries.

Sometime last year, Eric Hutchinson came to a strange realization: he kept daydreaming about high school. It had been over twenty years since the singer-songwriter had graduated from Montgomery Blair High School, yet his adolescent dreams, hopes, fears, anxieties and emotions the singer faced as a kid began flooding back; suddenly, the singer felt transported back into his teenage self. Growing up in suburban Maryland, Hutchinson’s teenage years were filled with the type of alienation and private angst recognizable to most anyone who’s ever been 16. Twenty-plus years later, the singer was finally ready to write about it.

The result: Class of 98, a 90’s alt-rock-inspired autobiographical record that chronicles the singer-songwriter’s adolescence.

“It took me a long time to understand myself,” Hutchinson says. “Writing this record allowed me to get into the time machine and go back and look around my old life and report from my current point of view. That was fun. The problems were waiting for me: Who likes me? Why doesn’t this person want to be around me? Why don’t I understand myself?”

After experimenting with a series of genres like Americana/soul and jazz on his last few albums Modern Happiness and Before and After Life, the singer-songwriter turned to the pop-punk alt-rock of his youth for the riff-heavy Class of 98, taking inspiration from bands like Green Day, Oasis, and Weezer. “That music is in my guitar DNA,” says the singer. “I love 90’s music, and this type of sound was so formative for me.” To help round out his sound, Hutchinson recruited Justin Sharbono (formerly of Soul Asylum) to offer his distinctive (and period appropriate) guitar playing on the album. Hutchinson also enlisted the sonic guidance and mixing talents of Paul Kolderie, who’d made great 90’s records with bands like Radiohead, Hole, The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom and The Pixies.

For Hutchinson, taking such an imaginative leap with a concept as specifically personal of Class of 98 was an artistic risk he knew he needed to take. “I don’t think people want me to keep making the same record, as much as anyone might think they do,” he says.

The opening track “Rock Out Tonight” sets the scene with a narrative that evokes the high-drama restlessness of a group of teenagers aimlessly driving around the suburbs in a Ford Taurus. The song, says the singer, is about “wanting to be rebellious, but having no idea how to do so.”

Meanwhile, cinematic songs like “Drunk at Lunch” and “Cooler Than You” show a darker underbelly of Hutchinson’s high-school introversion, echoing a theme that the singer-songwriter has been tackling in his work ever since releasing his chart-topping debut LP Sounds Like This, in 2007. “I’m always interested in asking questions in my songs: who’s cool, who gets to decide, and where do I fit into all of that?” he says.

But the emotional centerpiece of Hutchinson’s latest, and the song that was the most difficult to write, is “My Old Man,” written in the wake of his father’s passing, after years of living with Myotonic dystrophy. More than anything else on the album, the deeply personal song gets at the album’s central tension of writing from the teenage perspective while simultaneously embodying the adult point of view.

“I didn’t necessarily get along with my dad in high school,” says the singer. “We were in different places in our lives and he had different things to worry about. I tried to sing this song from my perspective back then as well as my perspective now, where I’ve made peace with him.”

Taken as a whole, Class of 98 arrives as Hutchinson’s most playful yet distinctive work, one that will surely resonate with longtime fans of the singer’s pop-rock hits like “Rock & Roll,” “Tell the World,” and “Watching You Watch Him.” For Hutchinson, the experience of delving back into his high school youth helped him learn a lot: about his upbringing, about parenthood, and about himself.

“I like the 90’s way better,” he says, “when I’m not living in them.”

To say Casey has been busy would be an understatement. Whether touring extensively across the US and Europe, receiving international recognition and press for her anti-bullying concert series The "You Matter" Tour, or gaining a loyal fanbase from the millions who watched her as a powerhouse vocalist on Season 13 of American Idol, Casey has accomplished so much in her short career, and this is only the beginning.

Casey founded The ‘You Matter’ Tour, which was recognized by The UN Foundation and ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show’, to use her original songs and life stories to teach students about showing empathy, taking action, and building self-confidence. Over 40,000 students have enjoyed this concert both nationally and abroad.

In the last 12 months, Casey toured across the US and Europe performing her new music. In addition to headlining her own sold out shows in New York and Boston, Casey also recently supported Stephen Kellogg, Kate Voegele, Tyler Hilton, and Nick Howard.

Casey has accumulated tens of thousands of followers on social media and millions of views and streams of her music online because her songs are authentic, intimate, and relatable. She is committed to being honest with her fans by sharing her personal struggles and empathizing with theirs. Her music videos are perfect examples of this: the video for her first single, ‘Beautiful,’ depicts her powerful story of growing up in our beauty-obsessed society, and the video for her newest single, ‘Hold Me’, illustrates the loneliness of transient relationships.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Neighborhood Theatre, 511 East 36th Street, Charlotte, United States