Country Music Star Dierks Bentley to Perform at RIT, March 3

DIERKS BENTLEY PERFORMANCE DATE CORRECTION

Dierks Bentley has impressed music fans while touring with the reigning Academy of Country Music’s “Entertainer of the Year,” Kenny Chesney. Now, he hits the road as a headliner, including a stop at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The platinum-selling country artist takes to the stage at 8 p.m. Friday, March 3, in RIT’s Gordon Field House and Activities Center. Bentley will play hit songs such as, “What Was I Thinkin’,” and “Forget About You” as well as heartbreak tunes like “Whiskey Tears,” “Distant Shore” and “Wish It Would Break.” Bentley’s new release on the Capitol label is titled “Modern Day Drifter.”

Last year, Bentley played 206 shows. One night, Bentley performed at the Memphis Pyramid and sang for 30 minutes for some 20,000 people, setting the table for superstar George Strait. Then, he and his band hopped on the bus, drove a couple hours to Oxford, Miss. and set up for a late-night show for 150 college students in the basement of an Ole Miss frat house.

“We went from one of the biggest lighting rigs you can have to a three-ring light tree,” Bentley remembers with a laugh. “The extension cord caught on fire and the lights went out for twenty minutes.” The musician says the second show wasn’t a chore—it was a blast.

“I want to wake up every morning thinking, ‘I’ve got to make the most of this day,’” he says. “If we’re playing a corn dog fair, I get out there and check out the horses and the cows and the prizes and hang out and meet people. You get to be a country music missionary. “You’re touching people’s lives every day. You’re influencing these people. So I try to make the most out of every day.”