Athens Goes Cosmic with Daniel Donato

The iconic Georgia Theatre has hosted just about every kind of sound imaginable, but on March 28, 2024, a little Nashville honky tonk twang collided with psychedelic improvisation beneath its famous rooftop sign. Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country rolled into Athens for a Thursday night stop on their spring tour, bringing with it a style that feels equally at home in a dusty roadside bar and somewhere far beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

The band was touring in support of its 2023 album, Reflector, a collection of original music that supports the self-proclaimed “Cosmic Country” sound. It's country music at its core, but freed from the usual boundaries. There's bluegrass, Southern rock, a little funk and a whole lot of improvisational jams. From song to song, Donato could be picking with the best of them and in the next, find a groove that sounds like it could orbit the room indefinitely.

Joining the expedition with Donato was Nathan “Sugar Leg” Aronowitz on keyboards, guitar and vocals, Will “Mustang” McGee on bass and vocals, and Will “Bronco” Clark behind the kit. Together, they weren’t in Athens to deliver a neatly packaged country concert. Over two sets filled with originals, traditional tunes, unexpected covers and extended trips into the unknown, Cosmic Country came to show the Georgia Theatre exactly what happens when the spirit of honky tonk gets launched into orbit.

Here's a look back at the night:

Date: March 28th, 2024

Location: Athens, GA

Venue: Georgia Theatre

Tour: March Tour 2024 (in support of the Reflector album)

Song of the Night: Dance in the Desert

Honorable Mention: Lose Your Mind

Attendance: 1,452

Daniel Donato's Cosmic Country live at Georgia Theatre in Athens, Georgia on March 28th, 2024 (Credit: Daniel Donato)

Daniel Donato's Cosmic Country - GA Theatre - 3/28/24

Some shows are circled on the calendar months in advance. Others fall into your lap with two days’ notice, and all you can really say is, “Hell yeah!”

That was exactly how I ended up seeing Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country. My brother-in-law Cameron called me two days before the show and offered me one of his spare tickets. At the time, I was just beginning to dive into the massive jam-band community, and although I didn’t know much about Donato, a quick Google search told me he was a cat worth checking out.

There was only one complication: Thursday-night Spikeball practice. Practice was usually non-negotiable for me, so I had to accept that I would miss the opening act. As soon as we finished around 7, I hustled home, showered, threw on some halfway decent smelling clothes and headed toward the all too familiar Georgia Theatre.

That was one of the greatest parts about living in Athens. On any random weeknight, you could walk downtown and catch an up and coming artist in an intimate room before they graduated to much larger stages. I had no real expectations walking into the Theatre that night. I was simply excited to hear something new and see where this whole “Cosmic Country” thing would take me.

The first set leaned heavily on covers, giving me a crash course in the wide range of influences behind Donato’s sound. The band opened with Gene Watson’s “Fourteen Carat Mind,” a smooth, traditional country tune that eased the crowd into the night. Before long, Donato was flashing a completely different side of his playing with an instrumental run through the Allman Brothers Band’s “Jessica.” It was an early reminder that while country music may be the foundation of this band, it is certainly not the ceiling.

“Fox on the Run,” written by Tony Hazzard, brought a touch of bluegrass flavor before the band continued digging through the country songbook. Stonewall Jackson’s “I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water” and Stan Jones’ Western classic “Ghost Riders in the Sky” were among the other covers scattered throughout the set. Hearing Donato move between honky tonk, bluegrass, and psychedelic improv made the concept of Cosmic Country begin to click. These weren’t simply faithful renditions of old songs; they were launchpads that allowed the band to push traditional country music into unfamiliar territory.

The second set gave me a much better introduction to Donato’s own catalog. “Lose Your Mind” immediately piqued my interest, bringing a different energy than the familiar songs that had dominated the first half of the night. Getting exposed to his original music in a live setting was exactly what I needed, and the deeper the band moved into the set, the more I began to understand why Donato was attracting so much attention.

Everything eventually culminated in the set closing “Dance in the Desert,” the song that has since become my favorite of his. The tune captures nearly everything that makes Cosmic Country work: a dusty, free-spirited country foundation, an infectious sense of motion and enough open space for the band to wander far beyond the song’s original borders. That night, it stretched past 20 minutes, gradually transforming into a full blown psychedelic expedition. It felt less like a traditional country song and more like riding through a desert after dark, watching the landscape become stranger and more colorful with every passing mile. By the time the band brought it home, I was completely sold.

I will admit that I dipped out of the Theatre before the encore because I was meeting some of my boys downtown for drinks. That decision meant missing Donato’s take on J.J. Cale’s “Ride Me High,” which I would probably stick around for if I could do the night over again.

Still, what an enjoyable night and a perfect example of why it sometimes pays to abandon the plan and say yes to something unexpected. If a friend ever offers you a spare ticket to see an artist you barely know, take it. Do the quick Google search if you must, rush home after practice, throw on whatever clothes pass the smell test and get yourself to the show.

You might discover a new track to put in rotation or an entirely new corner of the musical cosmos.

Want to Get in the Groove?

Here are some tracks to get you started with Daniel Donato's Cosmic Country: