Though based in Atlanta, Georgia, I’ve always felt like Zac Brown Band had a uniquely Florida, specifically Panhandle, kind of sound. Brown graced the catchily named MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre Sunday night alongside his band’s unique mix of bluegrass and island stylings, drawing hordes of high school and college-aged women in shoulder-less, ruffly tops and their boyfriends in cowboy hats.

Within minutes of arriving at the venue, I sat at a table and accidentally put my forearm in a splattering of barbecue sauce, so I was immediately immersed in the atmosphere. Brown and the boys were in town as a part of a tour promoting their album, The Owl. In case you were wondering, of course, the album has a collaboration with Skrillex — it’s Zac Brown Band after all.

Brown & co. were preceded by the impassioned crooning of none other than Lukas Nelson (son of Willie Nelson) accompanied by his band, Promise of the Real. And while not as blazon a pot advocate as his father, Nelson did rock a T-shirt from the Bill Murray B-Movie about Hunter Thompson, “Where the Buffalo Roam,” so at least he gets it.

ZBB (pronounced zēëb) opened its set with classics like “Homegrown,” “Free,” and “Knee Deep,” immediately followed by the band’s rendition of “The Devil Went Down To Georgia.” Given how heavy the fiddle was in the first few songs, we should have all seen it coming.

After Zacky B and the Funky Bunch finished a run through “Keep Me In Mind,” he announced what I heard as a dedication to his grandma for the next song. This detail strikes me because what followed was an emotional rendition of Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up,” which includes the lines “put your faith to the test when I tore off your dress” and “so girl, leave your boots by the bed.” The mid-30s woman next to me fawned over the rarity of Zac performing the song live (he actually played it last time he was in Tampa), but her husband and I were too busy parsing over the line “we ain't leaving this room, ‘til someone needs medical help, or the magnolias bloom” to fully enjoy the delicacy of it all. At the end of the song Brown announced, “That one’s for you JJ,” so either JJ is his grandma or a bunch of people in my section misheard his original statement.

And while the fidelity is incredible and the venue very welcoming, leave it to a credit union to charge $14 for a Bud Light and $16 for a Smirnoff Smash. When premium cocktail drinks are upwards of $20, you're almost better off just buying a handle and streaming the artist at home. But maybe that’s the ghost of my inner college self talking, my graduation was held a few months back at that very venue after all.

All in all, Zac Brown Band is exactly what you'd expect, a humble man and his band playing humble, mellow music to whatever venue books them. Sunday’s show was full of everything you could hope for: smooth picking, sharp fiddle, and southern serenading from a bashful lumbersexual. While not quite the ambiance of, say, a pontoon boat anchored out in the bay, Zac Brown Band created a certain ambiance at the MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, something foreign yet familiar, something corporate but unique. If only for a brief moment in time and space, Zac Brown and his crew temporarily transformed this quaint sliver of the Tampa Bay into something magical and self-defeating of its own serenity… they made it the Panhandle.