Latest news with #OliverAnthony
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Roots & Boots Tour joins 2025 Clay County Fair's Grandstand stage
SPENCER, Iowa (KCAU) — The lineup of performers is fully set for a northwest Iowa county fair later this fall. Officials with the Clay County Fair says their Grandstand lineup for this year's event starts with Oliver Anthony on Sept. 6, comedian Jeff Dunham taking the stage the next night, then vocal group Home Free performing on Sept. 8. Those three performances were announced last month. June Jam returning to Sioux City this summer Newly announced is the Roots & Boots Tour, which will perform on Sept. 9. The tour features country musicians Sammy Kershaw, Collin Raye, and Aaron Tippin. After that, dirt events include Bulls & Broncs on Sept. 10, dirt racing on the 11th and 12th, The All Star Monster Trucks on the 13th, and finally, the annual Outlaw Truck & Tractor Pull Series on Sept. 14. Tickets for all of these events and performances will be on sale starting Friday, April 11 at 10 a.m. They can be purchased by visiting the Regional Events Center box office, calling 515-244-2771, . Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Clay County Fair announces 3 Grandstand stage performances
SPENCER, Iowa (KCAU) — The Clay County Fair has announced three Grandstand stage performances. These three performances are a part of the SMG Concert Series and will be joining a variety of dirt events on the overall Clay County Fair Grandstand lineup, a release from the Clay County Fair stated. The first of the three stage events is country folk musician Oliver Anthony. Chris Lunsford, known professionally by his grandfather's name Oliver Anthony, rose to fame back in 2023 with his song Rich Men North of Richmond which went viral online, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and amassing more than 486 million streams on Spotify, the release stated. Oliver Anthony will be performing at the Clay County Fair on September 6. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. The next stage performance at the Clay County Fair is ventriloquist and comedian Jeff Dunham. Dunham has had many record-breaking comedy specials over the years, the release states, including three that are among the highest-rated programs on Comedy Central. One detail not mentioned in the release is which characters we might see performing alongside him, whether it be Peanut, Walter, Bubba J, or one of his many other characters. Pair of community cleanup events coming in April Jeff Dunham will be performing at the Clay County Fair on September 7. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. Rounding out the trio of stage events is country group Home Free. The release calls Home Free 'Country Music fans' favorite a cappella group.' Home Free performs a wide variety of songs including a cappella renditions of songs by John Mayor, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, the Oak Ridge Boys, and more. Home Free will be performing at the Clay County Fair on September 8. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the Grandstand events go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. Tickets can be purchased , in person at the Events Center Box Office, or by calling 515-244-2771. For more details on happenings at the Clay County Fair, . Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Oliver Anthony calls for personal responsibility, revival: 'We don't need our false idols'
Viral country singer Oliver Anthony is calling on Americans to turn back to their roots and give up false idols. "I'm just here to remind you that we don't need our false idols," Anthony, whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford, said during a speech Tuesday at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference held in London. "We should no longer rely on politicians who bow down to money to manage our city or our states. We need to find the real leaders everywhere and empower them," Anthony said. Country Sensation Oliver Anthony Leaving Industry One Year After Meteoric Rise To Start Traveling Ministry Anthony, whose 2023 hit song, "Rich Men North of Richmond," reached the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, said that American society has become soft. "Our modern society is [a] convenient, comfortable, fragile, little existence oftentimes carried on the backs of these self-declared nobodies," he said. "And forgive my generalization, but in the modern world, we are so busy idolizing the genuine nothings of society, the self-centered celebrities, spineless politicians, clickbait, social media influencers." Read On The Fox News App Anthony added that "it seems from my perspective that oftentimes these people live comfortable little lives while many of our real heroes are drug through the mud and never once given a genuine thank you for it." Anthony, who announced in an Oct. 29, 2024 YouTube video that he was leaving the music industry to focus on a "traveling ministry," also shared his concern about how social media and the digital age are impacting society. "What is bad is the lack of control and agency we have over these systems, and without realizing it, we are being programmed, and our culture is becoming commodified," Anthony said. "Therefore, the more time we spend on these digital information systems, the more we revert to the means of one of a fixed set of broad internet cohorts. In other words, the more time we spend online, the more commoditized our culture, the more tribal our psychology, and the more vulnerable we become." Oliver Anthony Staying True To Himself As He Grapples With Stunning Rise To Fame, Friend Says A self-described "nobody," the 32-year-old said that America is addicted to screens. "We currently exist in an age of rapid digital immersion," he said. "The current average American teenager will have spent something like 30,000 hours by the time they are 30 on social media. The average American spends six to nine hours a day staring at devices." What does give him hope, the former country singer said, is what he witnessed in western North Carolina in 2024 as the locals responded to the flooding and landslides brought on by Hurricane Helene. "Volunteer veterans with cadaver dogs that I had met with had pulled 15 bodies out of a single pile of debris near the KOA campground in Swannanoa," Anthony said. "The statewide count at that point had to have been well into the hundreds. I believe the number the governor used that day was 28. In fact, there was a reefer truck that sat for two days full of bodies because the morgues were overflowing." He said what he saw helped to give him hope for the future of the country. "Volunteers were working 16 hours a day taking supplies on everything from horses to helicopters. It was humanity there in front of my very eyes," Anthony shared. "And it was in that seven days in North Carolina that changed everything for me. It was people saving people." His new focus, Anthony said, is bringing revival to "rural America," in a mission called The Rural Revival Project, aimed at bringing renewal to forgotten farming towns and communities. "Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong, for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away, Anthony said. "Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. And so I'll see you on April the 5th in Spruce Pine, North Carolina for the first official gathering. It is now my life's mission to revive rural America one town at a time."Original article source: Oliver Anthony calls for personal responsibility, revival: 'We don't need our false idols'
Fox News
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Oliver Anthony calls for personal responsibility, revival: 'We don't need our false idols'
Viral country singer Oliver Anthony is calling on Americans to turn back to their roots and give up false idols. "I'm just here to remind you that we don't need our false idols," Anthony, whose real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford, said during a speech Tuesday at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference held in London. "We should no longer rely on politicians who bow down to money to manage our city or our states. We need to find the real leaders everywhere and empower them," Anthony said. Anthony, whose 2023 hit song, "Rich Men North of Richmond," reached the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, said that American society has become soft. "Our modern society is [a] convenient, comfortable, fragile, little existence oftentimes carried on the backs of these self-declared nobodies," he said. "And forgive my generalization, but in the modern world, we are so busy idolizing the genuine nothings of society, the self-centered celebrities, spineless politicians, clickbait, social media influencers." Anthony added that "it seems from my perspective that oftentimes these people live comfortable little lives while many of our real heroes are drug through the mud and never once given a genuine thank you for it." Anthony, who announced in an Oct. 29, 2024 YouTube video that he was leaving the music industry to focus on a "traveling ministry," also shared his concern about how social media and the digital age are impacting society. "What is bad is the lack of control and agency we have over these systems, and without realizing it, we are being programmed, and our culture is becoming commodified," Anthony said. "Therefore, the more time we spend on these digital information systems, the more we revert to the means of one of a fixed set of broad internet cohorts. In other words, the more time we spend online, the more commoditized our culture, the more tribal our psychology, and the more vulnerable we become." A self-described "nobody," the 32-year-old said that America is addicted to screens. "We currently exist in an age of rapid digital immersion," he said. "The current average American teenager will have spent something like 30,000 hours by the time they are 30 on social media. The average American spends six to nine hours a day staring at devices." What does give him hope, the former country singer said, is what he witnessed in western North Carolina in 2024 as the locals responded to the flooding and landslides brought on by Hurricane Helene. "Volunteer veterans with cadaver dogs that I had met with had pulled 15 bodies out of a single pile of debris near the KOA campground in Swannanoa," Anthony said. "The statewide count at that point had to have been well into the hundreds. I believe the number the governor used that day was 28. In fact, there was a reefer truck that sat for two days full of bodies because the morgues were overflowing." He said what he saw helped to give him hope for the future of the country. "Volunteers were working 16 hours a day taking supplies on everything from horses to helicopters. It was humanity there in front of my very eyes," Anthony shared. "And it was in that seven days in North Carolina that changed everything for me. It was people saving people." His new focus, Anthony said, is bringing revival to "rural America," in a mission called The Rural Revival Project, aimed at bringing renewal to forgotten farming towns and communities. "Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong, for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away, Anthony said. "Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. And so I'll see you on April the 5th in Spruce Pine, North Carolina for the first official gathering. It is now my life's mission to revive rural America one town at a time."
The Guardian
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
US culture war show comes to London – and strikes a chord with European populists
On stage in a corner of east London, the US folk singer Oliver Anthony got a rapturous reception this week for a rendition of his smash hit Rich Men North of Richmond, a tune about inequality and the political elite's disregard for the working class. Rather than performing in one of London's dozens of music venues, however, Anthony – who has claimed his song doesn't take any particular partisan side – was playing to an elite gathering: the well-heeled conservative activists, donors and politicians from the US, the UK and around the world who descended on the now yearly Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc). Part political conference, part evangelical rally and compared by some present – not without irony – to the Davos World Economic Forum, the conference has emerged as an increasingly influential gathering of libertarian and populist forces, promoting climate scepticism and social conservatism. And what it brought this year in particular, after the election of Donald Trump in the US, was clear. Days after JD Vance's ideological savaging of European ideals at the Munich Security Conference, where he alleged Europe's greatest threat came 'from within' and accused it – without irony – of illiberalism and anti-democratic tendencies, Arc 2025 celebrated a new kind of American export: ideological finger-wagging. Every day came fresh interventions by key Trump allies that acted as a cold shower for any Europeans still hoping the vice-president's words had been a blip. 'If we can reclaim our country, if we can reclaim our institutions, including the bloated, ridiculous overreach of the federal government, you can do what is necessary in your country,' Kevin Roberts, the president of the US Heritage Foundation that was behind the radical-right Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump presidency, reportedly said at one of a number of lavish events on the sidelines of the conference, according to DeSmog. Over three days, at an event interspersed with classical music and other cultural flourishes, attenders who had paid hundreds of pounds for tickets listened to a succession of conservative thinkers ranging from the British historian Niall Ferguson to the self-styled Danish 'sceptical environmentalist' Bjørn Lomborg take to a stage inside London's giant Excel conference centre. A near-constant presence – as host, interviewer and glad-hander – was Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and self-help author who co-founded Arc in 2023 with a British conservative member of the House of Lords, Philippa Stroud. But it was the American cultural attacks on European leaders – on everything from their net zero climate targets or their perceived failure to defend 'western values' – that particularly energised the audiences. Trump's energy secretary, Chris Wright, chastised Britain in a virtual address for 'aggressively pursuing' what he described as the 'lunacy' of net zero. 'This is impoverishing your own citizens in a delusion,' said the former fracking executive, to cheers. Mike Johnson, the US speaker of the House of Representatives, who is a member of Arc's advisory board along with the former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, spoke too. He cited recent elections in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany – where far-right forces are on the rise or in power – as demonstrating how voters had concerns about 'unchecked power and the erosion of national society'. Both interventions came after explicit support for the far-right Alternative for Germany party by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world who has become Trump's government-slashing consigliere, and whose appearances on screen at AfD rallies caused shock in Germany and throughout Europe. Musk, too, has thrown about apocalyptic allegations about Europe's supposed censorship, in particular smearing Britain's leaders, including the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and voicing support for the far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson and currently imprisoned for contempt of court. Far from running a mile from these increasing Trumpian characterisations of Europe as a dystopian hellscape, however, Arc underlined how the narrative has become one that some conservatives in Britain and the European continent are only too eager to embrace. Kemi Badenoch, the relatively new leader of Britain's opposition Conservative party, paid homage on Arc's first day to the US president's leadership and repeated a series of Trumpian attack priorities, castigating 'pronouns, or DEI, or climate activism'. She was followed on Tuesday by Nigel Farage – her rightwing rival and leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party – who has sought to make much of his relationship with Trump. Echoing a term that has become a rallying cry by Trump and those around him, Farage told Peterson: 'Our platform is to re-industrialise Britain.' As far as Arc's own description went, it was about 're-laying the foundations of our civilisation' by bringing together 'thought leaders and changemakers' who were committed to 'a hope-filled vision for the future'. Though not overtly religious, a strong Christian current ran through the event's discussions, while Stroud, Peterson and other Arc funders make much of their faith. Joining Peterson via a virtual link in a discussion about the opportunities and challenges that AI technology presented to humanity, the Silicon Valley billionaire and Republican supporter Peter Thiel – who has helped to bankroll Vance's political career – sought to look for answers in Christian theology. 'I think there were a lot of classical humanist ways to define human beings and I think those have gotten exploded. I think in a way, the more Christian ones are the only ones that are still left standing,' said Thiel, a founder of the information technology company Palantir and a co-founder of PayPal with Musk. But the conference also demonstrated the increasing reach and ambitions of rightwing US advocacy groups to expand their influence beyond America's borders. Outside the main auditorium, stands run by organisations including the US libertarian network Students for Liberty and the free market Adam Smith Institute stood alongside groups engaged in Britain's own 'culture wars' – such as History Reclaimed and the 'anti-woke' campaign Restore Trust. At one large stand, Focus on the Family, the US-based rightwing evangelical Christian group with 13 offices around the world, was promoting a documentary it aims to stream later this year about the activities of like-minded activists internationally. 'This film is about responding to the cultural moment we are in,' said Ken Windebank, minutes after the head of a Slovakian anti-abortion NGO approached him about the possibility of collaborating. He said the film 'is intended to galvanise people who are living out their Christian faith and trying to change things'. Some wariness still remained among at least a few European attenders of the radical new direction being charted by the US right. An older Austrian Christian Democrat who did not want to be named said he agreed with the sentiment of Vance's speech in Munich, but was put off by what he regarded as the US vice-president's aggressive approach. Like many others, too, he also admitted to being at a loss as to what Arc was actually for. 'This is clearly extremely well funded, and we're hearing much that we can agree on. But I'm still sort of left wondering about its role, though it is a great networking opportunity,' he added. Sam LaCrosse, a Trump-supporting podcaster and Christian public speaker from Texas, had no such hesitation: Arc, he said, was for finding common cause between Britons, Americans and others in what he viewed as a global populist uprising. 'The Trump wind gave us permission to do what we are doing, and then we have the cultural relevancy of Jordan Peterson here who has naturally pushed him to take on a more expansive role,' LaCrosse said. 'But I'm also just happy to be here around people with similar value sets. I'm 27 and it's a confirmation I'm going down the right path.'
