We caught Minnesota's all male quintet Home Free's crowd-pleasing, funny set on stage at the 2010 Harmony Sweeps Finals, where they somehow failed to place. They were obviously unfazed by that result, as we were next blown away by their act in late 2013 on the stage of NBC's smash show The Sing-Off, in the Finals. They won, of course, and got such tremendous audience response that Columbia Records put together a beautifully recorded "best-of" CD, "Crazy Life." There are 11 tunes here, many of them familiar to "Sing-Off" fans: the Johnny Cash hit "Ring of Fire" (with guest soloist Avi Kaplan, and actually written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore), "Everything Will Be Okay," "I've Seen" and "Champagne Taste On a Beer Budget", all written or co-written by amazing bass Tim Foust (who also did a lot of the arranging); a Hunter Hayes medley of "Everybody's Got Somebody But Me," "Wanted" and "I Want Crazy;" "Any Way the Wind Blows" by Nesler, Hansen & Dodson;" "Jump Right In" by Brown, Mraz & Durette; "A Little Bit of Everything" by Rudolf, Warren & Warren and Kevin Fisher's title tune are all enthusiastic favorites. The strong leads by Austin and Rob, dynamic beatbox by Adam, steady baritone by Chris and rich, chocolaty bass by Tim, and just the pure effortless star quality of Home Free is well worth whatever the price to hear or see these guys! |
