You don’t see too many sold out shows in Buffalo, but there have been no empty seats at three in the past month:  Foo Fighters (First Niagara Center), Skrillex (Town Ballroom) and now Jerrod Niemann (University at Buffalo Center for the Arts.)  While the UB CFA isn’t the biggest venue, Niemann’s popularity as an emerging country artist—particularly to college students—speaks volumes.

Niemann will serenade the University at Buffalo students and WYRK fans tonight at 7:30 p.m.  Tickets are no longer available, unfortunately.  Craig Campbell and Brett Eldredge are the scheduled openers. 

As talented of a songwriter as he is a vocalist, Niemann has written three singles for Garth Brooks.  Of his own work, “Lover, lover,” “What do you want?” and “One more drinkin’ song” have all cracked the top 20 of the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart produced by Billboard magazine.  There’s plenty of country twang and mid-western accent in Niemann’s baritone voice, a little reminiscent of Brooks. 

His 2010 album, “Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury,” holds amusing sexual connotations, and Roughstock.com has this to say about the release: “If we were forced to compare the album and Jerrod Niemann with anyone, Garth Brooks seems an apt comparison because Jerrod seems to have followed a template of singing songs with multiple pieces of other genres while never straying far from his core, traditionalist base.”