38 Special will perform at the Civic Center tonight.
LIMA — Don Barnes has experienced a lot since he first began the southern rock band 38 Special alongside other Jacksonville-based pioneers of the genre like Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers Band and Molly Hatchet. One memory that has stayed with him is the last time the band performed in Lima for 2009’s Square Fair. He is hoping to recapture some of the same magic of that night when they return to Veterans Memorial Civic Center at 7:30 p.m. today.
“The crowd was massive,” the singer and guitarist said. “It was like everybody in the whole city came out. There were manic fans and we were just throwing down as we talked about before the show. We had a great time. We couldn’t see the end of the crowd.”
And in order to do that, Barnes said that some new things are in store for this performance.
“Well, we changed everything around and we’ve got a new show this year,” he said. “We put a medley of all-time songs to make sure your favorite song is in there. We have it all in there, and we have the big live songs, too. We always amp it up. We don’t slack up, we stack up. We go out there every night like a football team trying to win. We want to take you for a ride for 100 minutes and we want to make it feel like a movie.”
The band still plays with the same underdog spirit that they developed in Florida’s panhandle.
“You have to kind of steel yourself to make yourself heard,” said Barnes. “So I think that underdog spirit gets into the songs and the power of the guitars. Our style is called ‘Muscle and Melody.’ We’ve got the snarl of the big guitars and a good melody and a good story over the top.”
Barnes said that even though they came up alongside those famed southern rockers, and were even partly founded by the brother of Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zandt, Donnie, 38 Special had to make their sound unique to stand out with hits like “Hold on Loosely” and “Caught Up in You.”
“We had a couple of albums that went right over the cliff and nothing happened,” he said. “So we finally found our sound and we just felt like, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”
That does not mean that 38 Special did not learn a lot from their peers.
“We learned a lot from them,” said Barnes. “Ronnie Van Zandt was about five years older than us and he told us, ‘Don’t try to be a clone of what’s already happened.’ So we found that we were more melody-oriented and sympathetic to the British Invasion and the Beatles than we thought and we took a different approach. And that was something that worked really well.”
As for what advice Barnes might have for aspiring bands, it was simple.
“That approach from those guys was not to take a backseat to anyone or take no for an answer,” said Barnes. “Young kids coming up in a band, you have to think you are the best band in the world. Because if you don’t have that attitude, someone else is going to steamroll right over you.”
For now, the band is focusing on staying in the moment and bringing a great show to the Civic Center.
“We are bringing the celebration and the good times to show our appreciation to everyone for making us part of their lives all of these years,” said Barnes. “We do it just like the albums. We make painstaking efforts to make everything clear and loud and clean and sound like the record. Everything is done with precision. And the main takeaway is to show our appreciation.”
38 Special has gone both gold and platinum and has sold over 30 million copies throughout the band’s history, which began in the 1970s and spans over 15 albums.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: 38 Special in concert
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. today
WHERE: Veterans Memorial Civic Center, 7 Town Square, Lima
Tickets start at $35 and are available at https://bit.ly/3VW4BEh.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
