The Band Perry Rides Again

by Dave Parsons

By the time The Band Perry was ready to step onto the stage at the Old Washington Music Festival, the rain had retreated, leaving behind a field puckered with puddles and dried mud. The sun was starting to dip behind the grandstand, and the crowd rose not just in applause, but in curiosity. This wasn’t the Band Perry they remembered.

It was something else. Something older and newer, wiser and wilder.

This was Kimberly Perry reborn. No longer flanked by both of her brothers, as she had been for the better part of fifteen years, but by a new band featuring her husband, Johnny Costello, on guitar, her brother Reid, and a road-tested crew of Nashville lifers behind her. The look and sound were new, but the voice was an old friend that had been gone for a minute. Still as strong and powerful as before, and on this Friday night, at the Guernsey County Fairgrounds, in front of a soaked but loyal crowd at the Old Washington Music Festival, she proved something important. The Band Perry wasn’t a phase. It wasn’t just a sibling novelty, a radio flash, or a crossover experiment.

It was, and still is, an artist’s story—still unfolding. Still singing.

To understand how we got to this point, you have to rewind more than a decade.

The Band Perry exploded onto the country scene in 2010 with their self-titled debut album, a multi-platinum release powered by the breakout hit If I Die Young. With its aching melody and poetic death imagery, the track boosted the trio into the top tiers of country radio. Three siblings with tight harmonies, church-bred charm, and just enough alt-rock edge to feel modern.

They followed it up with several hits, played CMA Fest, the Grand Ole Opry, and arenas worldwide. They were featured in fashion spreads and flirted with pop radio. And then, slowly, things got quiet. After their 2015 single Live Forever marked a definitive shift into pop territory, the band began to draw criticism. They parted ways with their label, and they disappeared almost overnight.

Fans waited. The world moved on. But Kimberly Perry never left music.  In recent years, Perry made a quiet but deliberate return. She released solo material, got married, and began writing again.  First in the shadows, then slowly back to the spotlight. Her 2023 solo debut EP Bloom, was well received, and she rebuilt. With her husband, Johnny Costello, playing rhythm guitar and serving as co-writer and co-pilot, she formed a new ensemble. They weren’t trying to mimic the old Band Perry, although performing under the name. Legacy is legacy, and songs like If I Die Young, deserve to live where they were born, with country music fans and new believers.

And that’s how she arrived in Old Washington.

From the opening riff of Better Dig Two, there was a surge of energy through the audience. The song has always been dramatic, built like a Southern gothic novel. Her husband backed her harmony in the chorus, and it felt symbolic. A new version of that death-defying devotion the song proclaims. If the original was about never letting go, this version was about surviving long enough to love again.

They weaved their way through some lesser-known songs to an audience attentive to hearing them.  When they launched into a cover of Sheryl Crow’s  If It Makes You Happy, the crowd responded in kind. The more upbeat Shaking brought an infectious bounce, as people danced and clapped hands keeping time, even for one they didn’t really know.  That doesn’t always happen at festivals.

They repaid the favor with a cover of Luke Combs’s anthem Beer Never Broke My Heart. Their take honored Combs, but added a feminine, sassy twist.  That was followed by a surprise.  Mama, Now I Know is a song that hasn’t been recorded yet, much less played in shows. Kimberly poured all of the emotion into it that the song deserved, and it felt like an old friend newly returned, instead of a new creation.

Comeback Kid was next with some tight instrumentation, and showing off the talents of the band. They drifted through Peaches and Caroline, a sweet, nostalgic song, perfect for the golden hour of the evening.  Then, the emotional moment of the entire day. If I Die Young.  Kimberly’s voice trembled through the opening lines.  Then that chorus, thousands of voices as one, hundreds of copies of the moment caught on phones, as memories, and loved ones were revisited for a moment.

What followed was a bold medley.  Never before would I have considered Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys, Where Have All the Cowboys Gone, and Cowboy Take Me Away to be a medley, seamless one into the next, but it did unify the multi-generations of country fans at the show, who all sang along together in about 6 different keys.

Heading for the finish line, the song I’m a Keeper, echoed the crowd’s enjoyment of wanting the set to be longer. The closing song, Done, left the night to end on a rousing note.

This wasn’t a comeback show; this was a continuation.

Kimberly Perry didn’t need nostalgia to carry her. She carried herself with grace, with fire, with the understanding that a career isn’t just a straight line. It bends. It bruises. It blooms again.

And at the Old Washington Music Festival, under a sky that had cleared just in time, she gave her old songs new roots and planted a few new ones, too.

In a world that often asks artists to explain their absence, Kimberly Perry, her brother, and husband offered no apologies.

They simply sang.

And we remembered why we listened in the first place.