Concert review: Broken pelvis no problem for Old Dominion in Jacksonville

You can pretty much close the voting for Most Appropriate Opening Song of the Year.

Old Dominion singer Matthew Ramsey broke his pelvis just over a month ago in an ATV accident, but there he was onstage Friday night at Daily's Place in Jacksonville, leaning on a crutch and singing "life is short, make it sweet," from the band's 2019 hit "Make it Sweet."

"We ain't gonna let a broken pelvis slow us down," he said early in the show, holding the crutch over one head, guitar slung over his shoulder.

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He spent a lot of Friday's concert sitting on a stool, but you can hardly blame him for that. He really should consider keeping it around for a song or two, because it really forces you to pay attention to what he's singing, not necessarily how he's singing it.

The band doesn't have a new album — their last came out in 2021 — but they had plenty of new music to share. The band played four new songs, "I Should Have Married You," "Memory Lane," "Ain't Got a Worry" and "Love Drunk and Happy," which the band had never played live but improvised when bass player Geoff Sprung's equipment went out halfway through "Snapback." Safe to guess that the band's string of hits is going to keep right on rolling; Ramsey announced from the stage that "Memory Lane" just went to number one on the Canadian charts.

Old Dominion plays the kind of music that's perfect for date night. There are several smart songwriters in the band — they ran through a mid-set medley of tunes they'd written for other people that included songs made big by Blake Shelton, Tyler Farr, Dierks Bentley, The Band Perry, Keith Urban and Sam Hunt — and they know how to write songs that are aimed straight at the ladies but have enough crunch to keep things interesting. The band didn't play a single song about a truck all night long, and just one about whiskey, which isn't something you see every day at a country show.

Guitarist Brad Tursi can tear up the room, but the band's best songs rely on tight vocal harmonies. It's no wonder that Old Dominion has been named Vocal Group of the Year by the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association every year since 2018.

Daily's was packed, which is not surprising. Old Dominion played two sold-out shows at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre in 2019, then again in 2021.

Ramsey seemed to feed off the crowd's energy and got stronger as the show went on. But at the end, he announced that he really didn't want to walk all the way off stage, wait for the crowd to call for an encore, then walk all the way back, so the band just stayed where it was and played a couple of requests, "New York at Night" and "Walk on Whiskey" before closing with the big sing-along "I Was On a Boat That Day."

The show had three opening acts but, curiously, just one backing band for the bunch of them. All three are songwriters in Nashville's Whiskey Jam, the same program members of Old Dominion came up through.

Greylan James started out, backed by a five-piece band and packing as much as he could into the short time he had onstage. When he was finished, the band never even left the stage and, two minutes later, Kassi Ashton came on for a short but scorching set of blues-rock with a country touch. Two minutes after she finished, Frank Ray came out for a set that mixed beach-country with some Latin rhythms. You have to give credit to the band for keeping up with it all.

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Old Dominion's setlist

• "Make it Sweet"

• "No Hard Feelings"

• "Never Be Sorry"

• "Break Up With Him"

• "Midnight Mess Around"

• "No Such Thing as a Broken Heart"

• "I Should Have Married You"

• "Written in the Sand"

• "Sangria/A Guy Walks into a Bar/Say You Do/Better Dig Two/Wild Hearts/Make You Miss Me"

• "Snapback"

• "Love Drunk and Happy"

• "Hotel Key"

• "Memory Lane"

• "One Man Band"

• "Song For Another Time"

• "Wrong Turns"

• "Ain't Got a Worry"

• "Hawaii"

• "Save it For a Rainy Day"

• "My Heart is a Bar"

• "New York at Night"

• "Walk on Whiskey"

• "I Was on a Boat That Day"

Daily's Place shows in 2023

Here's what else is scheduled at Daily's Place this year:

• Cody Jinks, with Charles Wesley Godwin and Erin Viancourt, 6 p.m. Saturday, May 20, $35-$225.

• Charlie Puth, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 1, $25-$89.50.

• Walker Hayes, with Ingrid Andress and Ray Fulcher, 6:30 p.m. Friday, June 9, $25-$55.

• Logic, with Juicy J, 8 p.m. Sunday, June 11. $29.50-$59.50.

• Tedeschi Trucks Band, with Neil Emerson, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 22, $29.50-$139.50.

• Matchbox Twenty, with Ben Rector, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 5, $50.25-$145.75.

• Taking Back Sunday, with the Maine, PVRIS, Hot Mulligan, Mom Jeans, Stand Atlantic, L.S. Dunes and Cliffdiver, 2 p.m. Thursday, July 6, $29.50-$69.50.

• Dierks Bentley, with Jordan Davis and Caylee Hammack, 7 p.m. Thursday, July 13, $39.50-$99.50.

• Boy George and Culture Club, with Howard Jones and Berlin, 7 p.m. Sunday, July 16. $19.95-$489.95.

• Darius Rucker, with Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors, 8 p.m. Thursday, July 20, $19.75-$89.75.

• Yellowcard, with Mayday Parade, Story of the Year, This Wild Life and Emo Night Brooklyn, 7 p.m. Friday, July 21 (sold out), and Saturday, July 22, $19.50-$89.50.

• Pentatonix, with Lauren Alaina, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 9, $19.50-$119.50.

• Ghost, with Amon Amarth, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 30, $39.50-$119.50.

• Slightly Stoopid, with Sublime with Rome, Atmosphere and the Movement, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1, $29.50-$79.50.

• 3 Doors Down, with Candlebox, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 13, $19.50-$89.50.

• Wu-Tang Clan, with Nas, 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23, $49.50-$149.50.

• Jon Pardi, with Midland and Ella Langley, 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, $29.75-$89.75.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Concert review: Old Dominion at Daily's Place in Jacksonville