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United States News Title: A second look at Big and Rich - `LOVE!' is all you need `LOVE!' is all you need, if you're Big & Rich Friday, September 08, 2006 It was easy to label country-music duo Big & Rich a one-hit wonder after the ``Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy'' euphoria of 2004. The song and subsequent video seemingly broke every rule in Nashville, leaving fans and insiders thinking: ``Rap lyrics in country music? OK, that'll work once, but that's it!'' But then the darndest thing happened. Fans started scooping up copies of the ``Horse of a Different Color'' CD and rushing to buy tickets to learn about ``country music without prejudice'' (that's how founding members ``Big Kenny'' Alphin and John Rich refer to their music). Their second album, ``Comin' To Your City,'' has enjoyed similar success, despite significantly less radio attention. Fans at Tuesday's Allegan County Fair show no doubt will learn that Big & Rich shows are known for being loud, rowdy, unpredictable and filled with pyrotechnics. A recent concert at Michigan State University's Breslin Center felt more like a Kid Rock concert than a George Strait show. More than likely, however, if you've already bought tickets to the show, you knew all this. Early critics of the duo may want to take a second look and introduce themselves to the new Big & Rich. It began shortly after the streamers from the ``Save a Horse'' parade fell to the ground. ``Holy Water,'' a song from ``Horse of a Different Color,'' hinted at the duo's more sensitive side. The song deals with domestic abuse, a topic close to Alphin and Rich, as both have family members who've been victims. Alphin recently told http://CMT.com that they feel equally passionate about their serious messages, as they do the party songs that they're known for. ``Horrific things happen. People get hurt, people die, people get abused, but people also go out and have themselves a good time and party their butts off,'' he said. ``I say we tried to weight it about 80 percent positive -- just get out and have yourself a Big & Rich time -- and 20 percent message-oriented,'' Rich said. ``We want to tell people something that hopefully improves their lives to a certain degree or just imparts a little bit of wisdom to them about something we've learned through our experience.'' More recently, the song ``8th of November'' sobered the Big & Rich family. The story is a rolling documentary of one man's survival during a ferocious Vietnam War battle. Niles Harris was just a forgotten soldier, bartending in Deadwood, S.D., when the duo befriended him. After learning his story, Rich and Alphin felt it was their calling to retell it, even finding the original battlefield in Vietnam and interviewing the opposing army's commander. The music video paints the picture well, but an upcoming documentary will further illustrate its destructive reality. According to Alphin, 48 men died that day. ``The only things that came back with Niles from Vietnam were the boots that they cut off him that day,'' Rich told http://CMT.com. ``They were soaked in blood and mud, and he kept them in his garage for 40 years. Niles took the boots back to Vietnam, back to the war zone. He went out there, found the exact spot where this battle went down and jumped down in a crater that was made by a bomb from a B-52 that probably hit that day in the battle. He crawled down inside there. Me and Kenny got on our hands and knees, dug a hole out and he buried those boots. We did a shot of Crown (Royal), dropped the glasses in and sang the song.'' John Rich has a word for this curious blend of fun, fireworks and tears, and he often has it painted on the back of his acoustic guitar: ``LOVE!'' That may be the only word needed to describe everything Big & Rich is about.
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#3. To: TLBSHOW (#0)
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Translation: no talent. Oh, yeah, that's the big time all right. Playing a county fair. hahahaha ... what a couple of losers So gay it's embarassing.
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