Hootie’s First Gig
November 19, 2018{Summer 1987} Darius worked for a record store called Sounds Familiar during college. His boss, Pete Smolen, was the co-owner of the new club, Greenstreets, that just opened up down the road, so Darius asked him if Hootie could play a gig there. Smolen “booked them on a Monday night, pretty much because it was Darius’s band,” and Mark penciled the show into his planner pictured above.
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The night of Hootie’s gig, Smolen went to the club and was floored when he saw it jam packed an hour and a half before the concert. “They couldn’t play their instruments that well, but even then, whatever it is that’s made them what they are now, they had it.”