Zac Brown Band’s ‘Goodbye in Her Eyes’ Will Be a Live Challenge

The Zac Brown Band went deep into the song vault to pull out their latest single, "Goodbye in Her Eyes," which has been around almost as long as their debut smash, "Chicken Fried." The tune laments the undeniable end of a love affair, and while it's one of the band's noted favorites, they anticipate the song will test their skills during live shows.

"It's a really old song," ZBB member Coy Bowles tells the Boot. "It's probably one of the oldest if not the oldest song Zac, Sonia Leigh and Wyatt Durette have written. It was inspired by a time when one of Wyatt's first relationships was going sour. He had a single moment when he realized that this is the end and he saw the goodbye in her eyes. So it's explaining that moment of revelation he had."

"Sometimes you don't want things to go a certain way but you know they do," adds percussionist Daniel De Los Reyes. "We have to accept it, but it's easier said than done. But it still has to be done."

The 11-year-old tune is the followup to "The Wind," the first single from the group's latest album, Uncaged, and they're looking forward to road-testing the tune for the fans live.

"I love this song," adds drummer Chris Fryar. "We've really never done a song like this before because it's a slow build. I guess it's inspired more by music like U2 or Kings of Leon would do, and we don't really have a song that starts off slow and gets bigger and bigger and bigger; so playing it live will be a challenge for sure. We did it in the studio and we nailed it, but playing it live is going to be a whole other level. We can take it as big as we want to go and start as small as we want to start. It's really going to be interesting."

The band will no doubt be playing the tune at their recently announced New Year's Eve gig in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena. Fellow Southern Ground artists Blackberry Smoke and Georgia singer-songwriter Levi Lowrey will open the Dec. 31 show. It's possible Detroit native son Kid Rock could even make an appearance onstage at the gig, since he and Zac collaborated on "Flyin' High," a track from Rock's 2010 album, Born Free.

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