**Update** Cole Swindell recently released his self-titled debut album. He recently sang his debut single “Chillin’ It” on The Late Show with David Letterman.

The good news is that the Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line show is still on for this Friday (June 14) at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Maryland Heights.

The  bad news is that Thompson Square will not be performing as scheduled. Keifer Thompson, who sings with his wife Shawna as Thompson Square, posted the following on the band website on May 29.

“It breaks my heart to tell our fans today that we must cancel our upcoming concert appearances this weekend. What many of you may not know is that I have recently been battling a very serious vocal condition. I was urged by doctors to cancel Thompson Square’s appearances and go on complete vocal rest several weeks ago; however, neither Shawna nor I wanted to disappoint our fans, which we love and respect dearly. So we chose to continue performing our scheduled shows while I remained completely silent offstage in an effort to heal. Unfortunately, at this time, I have been ordered by doctors to take the next step and to cancel this weekend’s shows in an effort to heal internally.”

On Monday, the band announced that they would unfortunately have to cancel more shows, including the St. Louis stop.

Luke Bryan didn’t have to look far to find a suitable opening act for a couple of stops on the Dirt Road Diaries tour. Cole Swindell and Luke are close friends and Sigma Chi fraternity brothers from Georgia Southern University. Swindell has been on the road with Bryan for almost three years. He sells merchandise at the shows and writes songs on the bus. He wrote several songs on Bryan’s latest album and also wrote “Water Tower Town” for Scotty McCreery’s debut album.

Cole Swindell’s debut “Chillin’ It” was recently released to the Amazon mp3 store and iTunes. Here he is singing it recently on stage.

 

Cole Swindell does have kind of a random connection to St. Louis. In this interview from 2012, country singer Craig Campbell talks about how he loves the Cardinals and is good friends with Adam Wainwright. He met him through former baseball player Blaine Boyer, who had a brief stop in St. Louis. Campbell met Boyer through Swindell, who co-wrote the song with Campbell, “Outta My Head”. That was really confusing for me to even type. Just think of this as his St. Louis connection.

 

The concert starts at 7pm on Friday out at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Maryland Heights. It is sold out, but you can still win tickets from radio station 93.7 The Bull by listening on Thursday throughout the day. Tickets are also available on StubHub if you are made of money.

Be sure to get in your seats or on your blanket early enough to catch Cole Swindell’s set. After Swindell comes Florida Georgia Line, a band that I wrote about in July of last year. FGL was one of the opener’s last year for the rained-out Dierks Bentley show under the Arch and has since hit unbelievable heights with “Cruise”. I don’t know what Nelly is doing on Friday night, but he may be making a cameo with these guys.

Here’s a look at the tour so far from Luke Bryan’s crew.

 

 

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