ABC/Mark LevineWhen Old Dominion headlines Roanoke, Virginia’s Berglund Center on Saturday night, lead singer Matthew Ramsey will be returning to the place that inspired his musical dreams.
In April of 1987, before Matthew turned 10, he recalls seeing rockers Huey Lewis & the News at the venue then known as Roanoke Civic Center Coliseum.
“That’s when I looked at the stage and went, ‘Whatever that is, that’s what I want to do,’” he tells The Roanoke Times.
In subsequent years, he’d go on to see acts like Garth Brooks and Aerosmith there.
“It’s a really cool thing to be able to come back home and sort of show off a little bit,” Matthew reflects. “But also, it helps you feel like I wasn’t that crazy, that I could move to Nashville and try all this.”
“Now I get to come back however many years later and do that exact thing,” he adds, “so it’s an incredible full-circle moment.”
Thursday night, OD plays Atlantic City, New Jersey, before stopping in University Park, Pennsylvania on Friday. Granger Smith and High Valley open the dates, including OD’s Saturday night stop in the state that inspired their name.
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