Kicking Concert Season Off Right

And speaking of backyard, that’s exactly where you can catch one such national act just a few short weeks from now, as they make the most of their route through Florida with seven shows before flying to Europe and the UK. We’re kicking off what I like to call Concert Season, when bands actually want to come down to Florida because it’s not hot as hades down here, but it is cold as hell everywhere else. It’s freakin’ snowed elsewhere already for Pete’s sake! Once you hear Parker Barrow, you’ll surely agree there’s no more fitting a kickoff to Concert Season. Locally, they’ll be playing outside in The Backyard at The World Famous Buckingham Blues Bar. If you’ve never been there, you’re missing out on a great place to experience live music. All shows are General Admission, so buy a ticket, bring a chair, and come early to stake your claim to the perfect spot. 

Sound itself is waves with peaks and troughs, but music needs other types of highs and lows as well to create our physiological response. Tension and release are both necessary components, and Parker Barrow are adept at ratcheting up the tension and intensity and just driving away with you in tow, until they finally take their feet off the gas. By the time they let up, your goosebumps may reveal you’re in unfamiliar territory, and it may take you a moment to reorient yourself. Parker Barrow’s live show is as energetic as any I’ve experienced lately, not to mention fully engaging and just plain fun. They are going to blow the roof off the stage at Buckingham Blues Bar on Friday night, November 6, from 8 to 10 p.m. Tickets are available at buckinghambar.com.

Parker Barrow 

WeAreParkerBarrow.com has a great story about the backgrounds of vocalist Megan Kane and drummer Dylan Turner, as well as the history of the band. I would refer you to the website where you can read, listen, and check out their merch, rather than retell the entire story here. Suffice it to say that Kane is from Alabama and Turner from Maryland. The two met in Nashville where each had gone to pursue a life made of music. Shortly thereafter, Turner’s singer departed his band mid-tour in Delaware. He called Megan Kane, whom he knew to be a top-notch singer, to come to the rescue. During the balance of the tour, both musical and romantic sparks flew and the two are now husband and wife. Having cut her musical teeth in the church and on classic and outlaw country, it was Turner who introduced Kane to classic rock, southern rock, and the blues, and she found the fullness of her voice in being a frontwoman. For the name of the band, the couple took the last names of fabled duo Bonnie and Clyde, feeling they shared not the life of crime, but a life in motion, on the run if you will, fully dependent on each other.

Dylan Turner is the Barrow half of Parker Barrow. “Since Megan and I met about 8 years ago, we’ve lived the majority of our life in that time on the road,” Turner explained. “You know, sleeping in truck stops or campgrounds, wherever we can find a place to park the bus or RV for a night, so it’s constantly on the go, constantly moving, very nomadic, you know, and we like it that way,” he claimed. “Even the times that we are able to get home, we find ourselves, if we’re home for a week or two, we start getting an itch to go, and do, and see.”

Of course, the going now is a hair more comfortable than it was some years ago. Kane and Turner’s early travels together were undertaken in a van that quickly gave way to what Turner described as a “hand-me-down RV”, an RV he said they drove until the wheels really did fall off. “There’s even a video, way back on our YouTube channel,” Turner recalled, laughing, “of a time that the wheel actually fell off that RV while we were driving down the interstate. Yeah, it was craziness. But yeah, after that RV we went back to a van for a little bit, and then we upgraded to a little bit of a bigger RV,” he continued, “and now, as of last year, we’ve been blessed enough to be in a bus. We’ve done everything from the van and the trailer, to now it’s just the bus, and all the gear fits underneath.”

The Band

The duo began with just the company of their 85-pound golden retriever/German shepherd mix, Sadie Mae. “She’s a big hairy girl,” Turner proclaimed. “She’s been on the road with us since she was three and she just turned 11 in May,” he said, “so, she is very much a seasoned road dog.” Sadie Mae appears in graphic form on the cover of Parker Barrow’s debut album, Jukebox Gypsies, in the window of the covered wagon. She’s also featured in a similar standalone graphic on her own t-shirt. 

Along the way, Parker Barrow has picked up quite a few human companions, making the bus situation all the more necessary. Guitarist, Alex Bender, is referred to as both “formidable” and the band’s Musical Director. He’s credited with solidifying the feel and the progression of the band. Bender can be seen wielding one of a number of different Les Pauls through a Marshall half stack. His counterpart on guitar, Will Tipton, seems to prefer the same road worn turquoise Stratocaster. Between them all the flavors are covered, from searing leads, to bluesy solos, to funky rhythm parts. Short of using effects pedals, you can’t get guitar harmonies with just one guitar player; and while there are countless examples of one guitar being plenty, sometimes more is more, and I never mind seeing bands with two, three, or even four guitars on stage. Two seems like a good solid number, and it’s a lot of fun watching Bender and Tipton play with, off of, and around each other.

The rhythm section is comprised of Eric Safka on keys, relative newcomer Kyle Priber on bass guitar, and Parker Barrow anchorman, Dylan Turner on the skins. Safka is a talented keyboardist, in turns holding down the rhythmic and melodic grooves with equal aplomb. When the time comes for a solo, look for Safka to lean so hard on his console it looks in danger of tipping over. I happen to love the organ sound, and Parker Barrow is certainly not equipment shy, making the most of the aforementioned storage beneath the bus. And the Leslie speaker for Safka’s keys is a very worthwhile expenditure of effort that is put to great use. 

Bassist Kyle Priber is the junior man, having been with the band for just over a year, but known to the band for more like six years, so the musical rapport is already there. The entire SWFloridaLive crew was on hand in March 2025 when Parker Barrow played the sunset set during the Venice Blues, Brews, and Barbecue Festival on the Venice Airport festival grounds, warming up the crowd for the mighty Dumpstaphunk. They had the previous bass player in tow then, but I’ve read that Priber’s bass playing is “so funky”. Sounds promising. 

Turner sits behind the drums toward the rear of the stage. Being the founder of the band, you’d think he might be positioned up front a bit, perhaps off to the side; but I suppose he’s where he wants to be. And rest assured he can’t be missed. When asked who they listen to on the bus, Turner replied that 9 times out of 10 it’s Led Zeppelin or The Black Crowes, being two of their favorites. One doesn’t have to listen (or better, watch) very long to hear (see) the Bonham influence. Turner is a big man, and he does not hold back when he plays. He seems to play with a sort of wild abandon, the look on his face frequently one akin to pain, or more likely exhaustion. The ferocity unleashed makes you wonder: how many sticks does he go through? How frequently must he change the heads on his drums? How long could his cymbals possibly last before cracking and breaking?

And of course, up front, commanding all the presence in the place, Megan Kane wrings more soul and swagger than would seem possible out of such a small package. Kane isn’t particularly short, but she is very thin. Yet, her voice is gigantic! Never quite at home in the country music world of too polished voices, Kane comes alive in the classic rock and blues world Parker Barrow inhabits. Comparisons to Janis Joplin are inevitable, not because Kane sounds like Janis, but because she has the same tremendously powerful voice that seems purpose built for conveying all the emotion of a blues ballad one moment, and belting out a stadium rocker the next. Kane’s voice is all her own, and once you learn to recognize its timbre you’ll be calling out songs as a Parker Barrow faster than Shazam. 

The Music; or, Yes, But What Do They Sound Like?

This is where I should refer you again to an outside source. If you want to know what they sound like you should listen to the band’s two fine albums, 2023’s Jukebox Gypsies and 2026’s Hold The Mash. I’ll admit that I wasn’t blown away by either album on the first listen. But, upon repeated listening, I found there to be brilliant, beautiful, and intense moments on both albums. There are many songs I would welcome in rotation on my streaming channels, and I frequently found myself thinking, man, I would love to hear that live. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the band’s originals and covers from Cream and The Black Crowes, one from each album. 

You want me to tell you in words what their music sounds like? Fine. Parker Barrow sounds like a high-quality pair of jeans or a sweatshirt you picked up from the thrift shop. Something you may not have sprung for to buy new, but here it is, already lived in, and washed a hundred times before. It’s soft, worn in all the right places, and so familiar and comfortable that it’s just, right. Parker Barrow sounds like their influences, late ‘60s and early ‘70s classic rock and blues rock bands, plus bands like Tedeschi Trucks Band and The Black Crowes. They sound like these bands without sounding like these bands. Perhaps the best way to say it is the influences are apparent, but they sound like themselves and are easily identifiable by ear as Parker Barrow.

Living for Live

Having seen hundreds of shows in my life, and possibly thousands of individual sets, I can tell you some bands are good live and some bands are better off in the studio. As a live music junkie, I prefer bands with phenomenal albums to their credit, but then take it to another whole dimension live. Turner very much considers Parker Barrow a live band. “What we’re most passionate about is the live show,” he said. “The live show is the reason we write and record music, so we have something to go out and play live!” Turner exclaimed. 

“We play a lot of different types of shows,” he continued. “We play everything from giant festivals, to fraternity parties, to sold out theaters and bars and clubs. We do a little bit of everything, and I think because of that we try not to necessarily tailor what we do to our environment. We try to bring the same show with the same energy everywhere we go. We try to treat every room as if it’s Madison Square Garden,” Turner clarified. “That’s sort of our approach to our live show, is bringing an arena rock show to wherever the heck they will let us play.”

“I’d say probably 80% of our show is improvisation,” Turner went on, “and we leave a lot of doors open for us to kind of go off the beaten path and hopefully find our way back. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t,” he laughed, “but you know, that’s the beauty of music, man, and when you’re able to kind of keep yourself open like that, one of the other things we say a lot is sometimes the magic is in the mistakes. Just being vulnerable and having the trust in the other musicians on stage knowing, hey, I can go for this thing that might be a little bit out of my league, because I got a handful of other musicians on the stage that will carry me through if I drop the ball here, and vice versa.”

Damn. Isn’t that what we all want to see on stage? People willing to just go for it? I know I do. I can’t think of anything more boring, or even cringeworthy, than musicians up there playing timidly or tentatively, or the same way they’ve done it a hundred times before. And if you’re a lover of live music, and especially improvised live music, you know the magic that can happen when the feelings start getting passed around, first around the stage, then from the stage to the audience, then finally from the audience back to the stage. When that loop gets closed is when things get really special. And I’ve interviewed enough musicians to learn that they know when it’s happening. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, everybody knows it. 

As Good As It Gets

“And that’s what it’s all about for us,” Turner acknowledged. “I was lucky enough to grow up around a lot of, not just music but specifically live music, and I consider live music to be a genre of its own. The energy that can be created in a room, you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s five or 5000, if you have a group of people who are as invested in what you’re doing as you are, the amount of energy that can be exchanged in that space is unmatchable in my opinion,” expounded Turner. “It’s the interaction on stage between us and the band, with these songs that we’ve written together, worked on together, and are passionate about. That exchange of energy on top of whatever the audience adds to it, for me it’s an unmatchable sensation and feeling. It’s as good as it gets,” Turner said.

Stand close enough to the stage or pay close enough attention and you’re likely to see something very telling during those moments of musical intensity, those trips into the woods. Although Kane is the frontwoman, and her voice is undoubtedly the star of the show, the human voice isn’t exactly a jamming instrument. Not only that, but Kane’s voice surely needs a break every once in a while, and you’ll understand that a few songs in. So, when the rest of the band is closing the loop, Megan Kane does something very sweet. She leaves the front of the stage to give the guys their moment; but she doesn’t simply walk off stage, she goes to visit her husband back at the drum kit. She stands by him and they steal loving glances at each other while she shakes her tambourine, or grabs a rim-chewed drum stick and helps him punish his poor cymbals. 

To What End?

If living out of a van, RV, or bus, driving city to city and state to state, unloading and setting up all your gear at each stop, giving your all on stage for a few hours, then breaking it all back down, loading it up, and doing it all over again, five nights per week sounds grueling, it is. There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of musicians, many of them every bit as talented as famous musicians, who are perfectly happy playing at the local bar on the weekends. There are others who must play, those who choose to live on the road, those who feel compelled or called to share their music with as many people as possible.

What sustains the musicians who make that choice? I know enough about the music business to know you don’t do it for the money—you can’t, not at the beginning and not on purpose anyway. Turner said it’s, “just the healing nature and healing power of music.” I like that. “There are certainly times where there is a physical demand,” Turner conceded. “There’s certainly an emotional and spiritual demand in what we do, and don’t get me wrong, we wouldn’t trade it for anything, but at times it can be grueling. The thing that makes it all worth it is the 90 minutes to two hours that we get on stage, three, four, five nights a week, to just bare our souls and do what we love.” 

“For Megan and I, this always has felt like a calling of sorts. We believe what we do is bigger than just music. There’s a purpose for us in this world,” Turner said. “ Being out and traveling and meeting all these people, it’s an opportunity for us to share more and spread more than just music. So, even on the worst day, I still can remind myself I’m traveling the country, traveling the world, with my wife and my dog and my best friends. It really, truly is a blessed life, as hard as it can be sometimes, I could never complain about it, not for one second.”

And There You Have It

If you don’t want to be at this show by now, nothing else you read here is likely to help, but I’ll give the final thought to Dylan Turner, just in case. He advised you to “come ready for some true blue, down to the bone rock and roll. That’s really what we do. We hope that anybody whoever comes and sees us play, if they don’t leave with anything else, we hope that they leave with a little bit of joy, we hope our shows are something that can lift people’s spirits.”

So there you have it, that’s the whole point. We hope you’ll be at the show. SWFloridaLive will be there. Look for us, get a sticker, and hang around after the show to meet Parker Barrow at the merch table, which is their second favorite thing to do.