The Show That Changed Everything: Brother Oliver’s Andrew Oliver

This is the second in a new series where we tell the stories of Upstate musicians in their own words. We are asking them to submit the experiences on stage that shaped them as artists, be it their first time performing live, their first big gig, or even just a light bulb moment they had during a performance. Thanks to Brother Oliver’s Andrew Oliver for the following story.

Andrew Oliver

“Back in 2013, Stephen and I had really just begun the band. He was living in Michigan and I was in SC but he planned to move down for the band in the near future. We made a plan for him to visit for a week with the intent to record/rehearse for the first couple days and then do an “open mic tour” for the rest of week. We had plans to play at an open mic every night of the week, so Monday-Saturday we had found a different venue for each night that we could show up and play. This was before we had really played or booked any shows in the area (we had played two small shows total in our careers at this point) so we were super excited to do this.

So Stephen arrives and boom, I get the flu. I was decked out for the first few days, although I pushed through and we still did some recording. I have a photo of me in the studio wrapped in a comforter because I had fever chills. But we were super disappointed obviously because we couldn’t play these open mic shows we were so excited about.

By the time Friday rolled around I was so eager to play that we decided to go for it, even though I was not feeling close to 100%. I remember feeling miserable but our desire to play was so strong at this point. The open mic that evening was doing a contest, which we didn’t realize. We powered through our 3 song set and were surprised to be named the winners at the end of the night (we got a $25 gift card and were ecstatic). The owner was so stoked he asked us to play an encore song, which took us by surprise because we really only had three songs total we were prepared to play… ha! Somehow, we squeaked another one out.

To be honest, I miss that hunger and passion. We’ve played a lot of big shows since then but those early moments feel the most special.”