Live, Local Country Music is Wanted in Maine

Something wonderful was revealed over the summer in Bangor. If you have a venue that provides live country music, people will show up. There is a demand for it, and there is plenty of talented Mainers to provide it. Mainers WANT live country music from talented Mainers.

Smoke & Steel BBQ kindly invited Q106.5 to partner for 'Nashville Nights,' a 4-week competition looking for the best, local musician according to in-house votes. It began with three Thursday nights in July where competition was open to local musicians to qualify for a shot at the grand finale.

There were doubts over how successful something like this would go over in Bangor Maine. Would there be enough musicians interested? Would people show up to watch? There was certainly understandable uncertainty, but nobody believed in it more than Smoke & Steel manager Holly.

That faith paid off. Every Thursday night was packed with a full lineup of eager and skilled singers and musicians. The grand finale was held on August 1st to a packed house left with "standing room only" for those wanting to hear live music from the talented local musicians ready to compete for the winning spot of the first "Nashville Nights."

Everyone Was a Winner Who Performed at during Nashville Nights in Maine

In addition to discovering the need for more venues that offer nights of live country music, we also got to see and hear how much talent is here locally. Every performer could have easily won, and every Thursday night that followed offered tougher competition. The first Thursday night saw the dynamic duo brothers of Z Minor take the victory. The second qualifying "Nashville Nights" gave us the 19-year-old with the big, 40-year-old voice of Josiah Dyer. And the final qualifying night offered up the extremely talented Nicholas Wood. These were the 3 to compete on August 1st.

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Josiah Dyer Won It All for "Nashville Nights" in Maine and Performed Live on Q106.5

Although the crowd clearly loved all three performances from the finalists, it was Josiah Dyer who received the most in-house votes. Josiah is $250 richer and even though he won, it felt like David and Cindy and the Q106.5 listeners received the real prize. Josiah came on the radio the following morning and belted out a beautiful rendition of one of David Allen Coe's hits.

Congratulations Josiah and everyone who was willing to share their gift of singing with the country music fans of Maine. We hope more venues open up their stages to live, local music, because we have now seen and heard how much talent is out there. In the meantime, it has been announced that "Nashville Nights" at Smoke & Steel BBQ will return in October. We can't wait.