Saturday, April 27, 2024| 8:00 pm

Indoor Show

Ticket Pricing: $39,$49,$59

Michael Ray didn’t have a choice. Not really. Raised in the heart of Central Florida, where horses and gators cluster, country music was always in the air. Even now, whether you’re in truck flying down a backroad, sitting on a porch, a boat out in the swamp, someone’s kitchen or just doing 60 hours in a 40-hour week, country’s the sound floating on the breeze.

That sound pulled the always-listening kid into songs, tumbling Telecaster guitar licks and a no-big-deal blue-collar heroism that didn’t exist in any other genre. Sure, Ray liked Southern rock, pop and what his peers were listening to on the radio. But when you factor in a grandfather who worked hard, but lived to get cleaned up and go out where the music was, as well as a father who put together a band who played anywhere people came to dance, drink, celebrate or forget, it was only a matter of time. Sunshine Opry. Local bars. Picking parties. It was all right there in and around Eustis, population just under 24,000.

By the time he was 11 years old, Ray was sitting in, turning up, asking what song was next.

Everyone in attendance must have a ticket. No exceptions.