Let him cry. Darius Rucker didn’t let an embarrassing fall with his alternative band Hootie & the Blowfish get him down.
The rocker and country singer, 58, joked about his age after taking a nasty spill on the stage at Charleston, South Carolina’s annual Riverfront Revival concert on Saturday, Oct. 10, with the fall and aftermath caught on video by fans.
While singing his solo hit “Alright” from 2008, Rucker lost his footing and faceplanted — and kept right on singing.
With the help of security, Rucker popped back up, chuckled at himself and declared to the crowd, “I’m old as f–k.”
He barely missed a beat as he plunged to the ground; however, the situation got the best of him, and he took a moment to laugh at himself with his keyboard player, Lee Turner.
Before the song ended, Turner teased Rucker by pointing out where he tripped. The singer, born in Charleston, later addressed the fall, stating, “We’ve been doing this all summer. I hadn’t fell once. But I busted my ass in my hometown.”
Hootie & the Blowfish recently wrapped up a 43-city tour that ran from May to September. The band, known for hits like “Hold My Hand” (1994), “Let Her Cry” (1994) and “Only Wanna Be with You” (1995), started in 1986 with vocalist Rucker, guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Brantley Smith, who later left the group.
They found mainstream success after releasing their July 1994 debut album “Cracked Rear View,” which went certified platinum by Jan 1995 and later became the year’s best-selling album.
Hootie & the Blowfish have won two Grammys over the band’s decades-long career.
In 2008, Rucker revealed that Hootie & the Blowfish were going on a several-year hiatus and he’d be pursuing a solo career in country music. He later clarified that the band was not splitting up, and they continued to perform at various events.
Newer Rucker fans might know him from his country hits, with his most famous arguably being his 2013 mega-hit “Wagon Wheel,” which earned him a Grammy for Best County Solo Performance.
Hootie & the Blowfish announced a reunion tour in Dec. 2018. The 44-city Group Therapy Tour with Barenaked Ladies started in May 2019.
Rucker recently made headlines for his Feb. arrest, stemming from a traffic stop in Tennessee the year before. When police searched his vehicle, they found what was suspected to be a THC pen along with 14 unmarked purple pills that he claimed were given to him by his girlfriend, Summer.
Additional testing revealed the pills were psilocin — a Schedule I controlled substance similar to psilocybin or magic mushrooms.
Rucker was hit with two counts of simple possession/casual exchange of a controlled substance and one count of violation of Tennessee’s vehicle registration law. He pled no contest and was sentenced to 11 months and 29 days of probation, according to WKRN.
The singer later spoke about the incident.
“It sucks,” Rucker told People in May. “Fifty-seven years, never seen inside of a police car or jail, and I get busted for that.” I mean, I looked back at that and I was like, ‘I got stopped by a police officer and I had a little bit of pot, and I think a little bit of some mushrooms or something in the car, and he let me go.’ And a year later I got a phone call from a buddy that said, ‘I think I just saw an arrest warrant for you.’ It shocked me. And I’m handling it with my lawyers, and paying the price, and we’ll move on with our lives.”
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