Blackberry Smoke Pays Tribute To Late Drummer Brit Turner With Emotional Homecoming Concert

On stage Friday night at Atlanta's Chastain Park, Blackberry Smoke's Charlie Starr sang home on the slow rock ballad “Azalea,” a track from the group's latest album. Be here: “Maybe it's not out there/Maybe this leads nowhere/Home will always be here.”

For Blackberry Smoke, home is Atlanta. Since forming in 2000, the Southern rock outfit has taken it across the country and around the world as one of bluesy country-rock's premier acts. But on stage at Chastain, we were going to go back to where it all began – to founding member Brit Turner.

The beloved drummer and humorous heart of Blackberry Smoke died on March 3 after a courageous battle with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. He was 57. At the time, the band had just embarked on a national tour for Be herewhich included Turner's final recordings and contributions.

“I think about him every day, every show, every set list,” says Starr Rolling Stone behind the scenes in advance. “It was so deeply ingrained in all the things we do. Every aspect of it. Not just the songs and the playing of the music, but it was his drive in the early days that kept the band going.”

In the hours before the show at the Cadence Bank Amphitheater, Starr sits on the band bus parked behind the venue. He chooses not to take the most comfortable seat in the galley of the vehicle — that was Turner's prized seat while on the road.

“That's his place,” Starr smiles. “And I'm not letting anyone else sit here because I don't want any weird butts sitting here.”

When asked about the status of Blackberry Smoke and how the band is moving forward without its anchor, Starr's eyes begin to water. “He was my favorite drummer and my best friend,” she says. “[Tonight]it's not closure. Nobody wants that. It is part of us forever.”

Wiping away tears, Starr laughs when he thinks of Turner – his half-brother for more than a quarter of a century. “We spend more time laughing about things he said now than crying. His thing was humor,” says Starr. “He was important to a lot of people, not just me.”

Throughout Turner's homecoming concert, a large projection screen behind Blackberry Smoke flashed images of fast motorcycles and even faster cars, along with collages of the vast American West and the greater Appalachian South — all things Turner loved.

Periodically, the screen would also broadcast tributes from a number of music legends. Billy F. Gibbons, Warren Haynes, members of the Zac Brown Band and Jamey Johnson all paid their respects to Turner and the band. “They did exactly what I wanted to do,” Johnson said in his remarks. “They're just shaking their asses.”

For the encore, Blackberry Smoke returned to the stage to belt out some of Turner's favorite classic rock hits with some special guests. Butch Walker, a longtime friend of Turner's and an Atlanta native, crushed Van Halen's “Dance the Night Away,” while Jekyll's Jesse James Duprey screamed his way through AC/DC's “Have a Drink on Me.”

“Butch was at our first rehearsal. He has seen it all from the beginning. Then Jesse made our first record and got us through the first month of our career in 2001,” says Starr, connecting the dots.

But the cherry on top of the two-hour set came from Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen, who showed up for a raucous, rocking performance of the group's classic “Surrender.” It was a nod to one of Turner's first live shows, Cheap Trick at Atlanta's Fox Theater in 1979.

With the Turner tribute now in the rearview mirror, Blackberry Smoke will be back on the road, playing their songs for their fans and also promoting the legacy, legend and tradition of Brit Turner.

“You look at the Allman Brothers. When Duane died, they played his funeral. I was thinking, 'How could they do that?'” says Starr. “And now I know — it's all they knew how to do. In a way, Brit was like Duane, where he was the one saying, “Get your ass on stage and play.”

Set list:
“sanctified woman”
“Good One Comin' On”
“Hammer and the Nail”
“Waiting for Thunder”
“Are you listening Georgia”
“Pretty Little Lies”
“Hi Delilah”
“Let it burn”
“Like it was yesterday”
“Dig a hole”
“Sleeping Dogs”
“Azalea”
“Hands with the Holy Spirit”
“Whatcha Know Good”
“Run away from everything”
“Ain't Got the Blues”
“Up in Smoke”
“One Horse Town”
“A Little Crazy”
“Dance the Night Away” (with Butch Walker)
“Have a Drink on Me” (with Jesse James Dupree)
“Surrender” (with Rick Nielsen)
“I don't have much left”