Stillwater star Wyatt Flores returns to Tulsa, ‘the place that built me,’ for free concert 

Not long ago, hearing Wyatt Flores play live in Tulsa was as simple as walking into the right bar at the right time. 

On Friday night, it took standing on concrete benches, finding a spot on the top of the stairs or even climbing a tree at Guthrie Green in 100-plus-degree heat to catch a glimpse of the Oklahoma native. Several officials said it could be the park’s largest crowd in its nearly 14-year history, with thousands packed on the green and overflowing onto a closed North Boston Avenue, where there was no view of the stage.  

Flores announced two record signings and a free pop-up show at Guthrie Green a week ahead of releasing his new 13-track album “Scared of Heights” Friday. Hours before the show, the park was full of fans with lawn chairs — many wearing cowboy hats to provide some shade to their faces in the extreme heat. 

To Flores, no other place than Tulsa would have been the appropriate place to perform in celebration of his second studio album. 

“I honestly just feel like it’s kind of just paying my respect for the place that built me,” Flores said. “On the career side, Tulsa was the area that made me. As much as I came from Stillwater, home of Red Dirt, where I really started playing shows was in Tulsa and in northeast Oklahoma.” 

Flores is on his “Drive All Night” tour that resumes Friday in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The Guthrie Green performance included his touring setup, complete with a staged truck bed and neon lights. Lance Roark, a Gore native, opened the show with a Red Dirt sound and covers from bands like Turnpike Troubadours. 

“Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” and the sound of his truck starting signaled Flores’ walk out to the stage just before 9 p.m. For the next hour and a half, Flores played each of his new songs from the album sprinkled throughout a set of his other songs that have made a name for themselves in his circle of fans, such as “West of Tulsa” and “Stillwater.” 

As the set progressed, Flores’ talent as a live performer was cast in a new light. One moment he was smiling and playing along to a new riff, and the next he was tearing up while thanking Tulsa for the support. During “Please Don’t Go,” his first viral song, fireworks lit up the downtown skyline. 

Before taking the stage, Flores said the pop-up show had no rules. That allows him and the band to let loose. 

“I truly love pop-up shows because it can be whatever it wants to be,” Flores said. “I guess it’s so freeing because you know I don’t feel like I have to put on the greatest show in the world. I can kind of do whatever I want, do things that I’ve never done before, like playing a whole bunch of new songs that some of them haven’t even been played live in front of people yet.” 

Pressure is a feeling Flores has become familiar with. He recalls becoming a somebody overnight. Since his humble beginnings performing in small Oklahoma bars, he has toured out of the country, debuted at the Grand Ole Opry, won the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame Rising Star Award and signed a record deal with MCA Records. 

“Scared of Heights” stemmed from his fear of failing and letting people down. He said it is a technically break-up album, but its themes go deeper than that. Before the album’s release, Flores said it was nerve-wracking to make a sonic change so early in his career. 

“There’s definitely people out there that are like, ‘Man, why don’t you just go back to you and your acoustic guitar?’ and it’s like, ‘Well, that wouldn’t be fun for me, and my art would suffer because of it,’” Flores said. “I knew that this was going to be scary to see who would fall off the wagon and that’s why I named the album ‘Scared of Heights,’ because I was like, ‘I’m scared to do this, but I’m going to do it anyway.’” 

Flores released the first single off of “Scared of Heights” a week after he signed to MCA Records in March. The label helped him get “Runnin’ on E” on the radio, another milestone. 

When the first singles, including “Drive All Night” and “Half the Man” came out, whispers of his new music sounding “pop country” reached his ears. Flores said his influences are far from that. 

“That is not what this album is,” Flores said. “I was trying to bring it back to 2005, and I was always heavily influenced by the punk rock scene, and that’s really what I wanted to do was the pop punk kind of stuff. All American Rejects also came out of Stillwater, and I grew up listening to them since I was probably 8, so it’s always been there.

“It’s never just been country for me. I never feel like I should put boundaries around myself and say that I can’t go and do the things that I want to. I don’t have to get stuck in a box.”

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