This year marks the 30th anniversary of Hootie & the Blowfish’s debut album, “Cracked Rear View,” one of the best-selling albums of all time. But that anniversary isn’t the main reason Hootie & the Blowfish are back together for an extensive summer tour, their first such outing since 2019. “We’re not going out there making a big deal out of the 30th anniversary, so that’s not really the whole reason for doing it,” guitarist Mark Bryan said of the tour in a recent phone interview.
“More than anything, it’s because we can, to be honest with you. I don’t mean that like a throw-off answer. We really appreciate the fact that this far into our career we still have the ability to do this and to sound as good as we do and to still affect people with our music.
“What a blessing, you know. I think all four of us feel like that, and if we were to do it (a tour) every five years, it wouldn’t surprise me,” he said. “Cracked Rear View” remains one of the most unusual achievements in rock history and an album that transformed the careers — and lives — of the four band members: Darius Rucker (vocals/guitar), Bryan, Dean Felber (bass/piano) and Jim Sonefeld (drummer).
How it started The band came together in 1986 at the University of South Carolina in Columbia and soon got busy touring around the Southeastern United States, while independently releasing a pair of cassette demos, followed in 1993 by the EP “Kootchypop.” That August, Hootie & the Blowfish.
