Country music duo Florida Georgia Line to perform March 7 at Jacksonville University

Rising country rock music duo Florida Georgia Line, who will be honored in April as the Academy of Country Music’s Best New Vocal Duo or Group of the Year, will perform Thursday, March 7 at Jacksonville University’s Strom Amphitheatre.

The 7 p.m. concert is being presented by JU’s Dolphin Productions; it will be open to JU students, faculty, staff and guests. The show is free and will include giveaways to spectators; the JU community is encouraged to invite their family and friends to the concert.

Florida Georgia Line, which features trademark harmonies, hard-driving country rock, soulful hip-hop and honest, expressive lyrics, consists of Brian Kelley of Ormond Beach, Fla., and Tyler Hubbard of Monroe, Ga. The duo entered the contemporary country scene in 2012 and already has played the Grand Ole Opry.

Florida Georgia Line has toured with Alabama, Brantley Gilbert, Colt Ford, Gary Allan, Justin Moore and Jake Owen, and after selling nearly 200,000 digital downloads independently, they signed a label deal with Republic Nashville.

The band’s first single, “Cruise,” a song that blends riding country roads with some scorching rock chords, topped the Billboard Country Airplay chart in its 19^th week, achieving the fastest climb to the top of a chart for a debut single since 2006. Its five weeks atop the Hot Country Songs chart marked the most weeks at No. 1 on either country chart for a new act’s first release since “Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” in 2004.

“Cruise” previously reached No. 1 on the iTunes country singles chart, and helped secure the duo a spot on Luke Bryan’s 2013 Dirt Road Diaries tour.  Country Weekly calls “Cruise” a “hip-hop hybrid of crunchy electric guitar riffs, rap lyrics and backwood boondock roots that would make Kid Rock proud and Jason Aldean envious.”

“Cruise” was the first offering from Florida Georgia Line’s second EP, “It’z Just What We Do.” Kelley’s and Hubbard’s first studio album, “Here’s to the Good Times,” reflects the duo’s songwriting skills and focuses squarely on having a good time, particularly with “Cruise,” the title song and their tunes “Tip It Back,” “Party People” and the group’s newly released single, “Get Your Shine On,” which has reached No. 23 at the both of Billboard’s country charts and No. 85 on Billboard’s Hot 100. “Cruise” peaked at No. 16 on the Hot 100 chart.

Best friends, Kelley and Hubbard began playing guitar since high school have been writing and playing music since meeting as students at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.; they became Florida Georgia Line in 2009. Noted for their work ethic, Hubbard and Kelley write on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and tour on the weekends.

“Our band name isn’t so much a place on the map, but where we come together musically,” Hubbard recently told USA today.

For more information about Florida Georgia Line’s performance at Jacksonville, e-mail dpmarketing@jacksonville.edu or visit the show’s Facebook page.