Festival announces Train with Better Than Ezra

By Reader Staff

The Festival at Sandpoint announced another show from its 2023 concert lineup. Train with Better Than Ezra will take the stage on Saturday, July 29. Tickets for Train with Better Than Ezra are on sale now.

With more than 10 million albums and 30 million tracks sold worldwide, multi-Grammy Award-winning band Train is following up its Sail Across the Sun cruise by hitting the road throughout the summer, bringing audiences hits from its almost-three decades of live performance.

Train released its 11th studio album, AM Gold, in May 2022 and recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of its self-titled debut album. Released Feb. 24, 1998, Train featured the band’s debut single, “Meet Virginia,” which led to its first radio hit and first Top 20 song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Since its formation in 1994, Train has seen 14 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100, 12 albums on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and sold more than 10 million albums and 30 million tracks worldwide. 

The band’s global hit “Hey, Soul Sister” continues to reach new milestones — it was the No. 1 best-selling smash and most downloaded single of 2010, achieved RIAA Diamond status in 2021 and is now 11x Platinum, and in 2022 surpassed 1 billion streams on Spotify. 

The band is comprised of frontman Pat Monahan (lead vocals); Hector Maldonado (bass, vocals); Jerry Becker (keyboards, vocals); Taylor Locke (guitar, vocals); Matt Musty (drums); Sakai Smith (backup vocals); and Nikita Houston (backup vocals).

Joining Train will be Better Than Ezra. 

Formed in 1988 at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, the later New Orleans-based band scored a No. 1 hit in 1995 with “Good.”

Led by founders Kevin Griffin on lead vocals, guitar and piano, and Tom Drummond on bass and backing vocals, success has followed success with further hits like “Desperately Wanting,” “King Of New Orleans” and “Closer.”

And of course, there’s Taylor Swift’s cover of “Breathless” in 2010, which underscored the band’s enduring presence as one of the 100 Greatest Alternative Artists of All Time, as Billboard put it in 2018. 

Tickets for Train with Better Than Ezra are available at festivalatsandpoint.com.

Train with Better Than Ezra, underwritten by Idaho Forest Group on Saturday, July 29, is a standard show, meaning the area in front of the stage is standing-room only. General admission tickets are $74.95. Gates will open at 6 p.m. and the music starts at 7:30 p.m.