Epic sandbar concert could become Water Festival mainstay

Patrick Cooper had never visited Beaufort before this past weekend.

Now he plans to be back every year.

The country musician and University of South Carolina graduate took center stage — or rather commandeered a steel barge — at an inaugural concert at the Beaufort River sandbar Saturday. One of the biggest hits of the Beaufort Water Festival was not on the official schedule but could now become a mainstay.

“It was by far the most unique show we’ve ever done, with hauling equipment out there in the middle of the ocean and playing the tides the way it needed to be,” Cooper said Monday. “It couldn’t have went any more perfect, man.”

Cooper and Beaufort’s Samee Cannon performed on the improvised stage, surrounded by boats as the tide came in.

Beaufort natives Blake Gruel and Jarrett Owens hatched the idea for the concert in March. Gruel reached out to Cooper, his fraternity brother at the University of South Carolina.

Cooper, a Georgia native now based in Nashville, didn’t hesitate. Gruel and Owens said they didn’t want to conflict with or appear to be associated with the Beaufort Water Festival going on in nearby Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park.

The sandbar entertainment preceded the Water Festival’s Saturday country concert featuring Canaan Smith and LOCASH.

“A lot of people out there after a long day in the boat don’t make it to the concert in the park after drinking and being in the sun all day,” Owens said. “I had the idea to bring live music out to us.”

Owens and Gruel raised money needed to pay the band through sponsors and a GoFundMe account. The barge was borrowed from O’Quinn Marine Construction.

The sound equipment was loaded on at Factory Creek and towed to the sandbar and anchored Saturday morning. Cooper played some original songs and covered country hits like Craig Morgan’s “Redneck Yacht Club.”

What was to be a 90-minute show turned into three hours as the water rose higher. Cooper had also performed the night before at Q on Bay and said the sandbar concert felt like a continuation.

“We kept adding songs from the night before, because everybody was so into it,” Cooper said. “The energy stayed so high all day that the time flew by — three-plus hours on Saturday of live, high-energy country music.”

Cooper started singing karaoke while a student in Columbia and received enough positive feedback to sell his truck and move to Nashville when he graduated in 2012. A native of Thomson, Ga., Cooper was visiting Beaufort for the first time but plans to return each year for the sandbar concert.

The early returns on social media were positive.

“Was a ton of work and stress but boy was that fun!” Gruel posted to Facebook. “...Round 2 next year!?”

“To say that today was amazing would be an understatement,” Cannon wrote on her Facebook page.

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This story was originally published July 18, 2016 at 10:46 AM with the headline "Epic sandbar concert could become Water Festival mainstay."