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Zac Brown Band has become the ultimate summertime band.

The Atlanta sextet, one the most popular country bands that isn't really a country band, possess a rootsy vibe that sounds like it's coming from a jam session on the back porch — the back porch of a beach home.

That's why Zac Brown Band has inherited the role they share with Kenny Chesney from Jimmy Buffett.

Buffett, of course, was for decades the be-all and end-all when it came to tailgating before a show, with Parrotheads and Parakeets treating the entire day of a Buffett show as an excuse to don funny hats and wacky sunglasses and imbibe strawberry margaritas in the parking lot next to an amphitheater.

But with Buffett now 65 years old, and having avoided the Beehive State and its strict liquor laws for a long time, Utahns can have the same experience with the next best thing.

"[Buffett] has said that he is passing the tiki torch to us," said Jimmy DeMartini, fiddler for Zac Brown Band.

The problem is, Zac Brown Band should be here during the summer, not on Jan. 21. On Saturday, it should be so chilly in the Maverik Center parking lot that it would freeze the Coronas in your cold, dead hands. Those who want to get a little lubricated for the show will have to settle for a cocktail at the nearby Ruby Tuesday.

Members of Zac Brown Band, however, will, not be seen chugging bottles of coconut rum next to the restaurant's famed salad bar, because despite their hard-partying image, alcohol is a no-no for them before the show.

"None of us drink before the show," said DeMartini, "[At least] once we stopped playing five-dollar-cover shows."

It has been a while since the band has played for $5. Zac Brown Band's debut single, "Chicken Fried," was originally recorded in 2003 but later re-recorded and released to country radio in 2008, where it and other songs on the band's breakthrough album "The Foundation" sold boatloads of songs that depicted an existence full of easy-going country livin' where being barefoot and buzzed is the goal. "You Get What You Give," in 2010, was the band's second major-label album, with many of the back roads swapped for beaches, including on the most representative song ever penned by Brown: "Knee Deep," a duet with Buffet where they extol the virtues of blue-sky breezes:

Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair

Sunrise there's a fire in the sky

Never been so happy

Never felt so high

And I think I might have found me my own kind of paradise

Wrote a note said be back in a minute

Bought a boat and I sailed off in it

Don't think anybody gonna miss me anyway

Along for the ride on this tour is Sonia Leigh, who like Zac Brown Band, has a sound that cannot be simply called "country." The 33-year-old singer-songwriter is an edgier, grittier version of Melissa Etheridge, and is signed to Brown's record label, along with fellow opening act Nic Cowan.

Leigh has toured with Brown before, and treats the hirsute Brown as a mentor for championing her work. "Zac's very well-respected," Leigh said. "People are more inclined to check me out, based on his advice."

With her latest album, "1978 December," a fierce declaration of identity, Leigh is thankful that unlike most country headliners, he selects relative unknowns like herself rather than already-established country acts.

As for her New Year's resolution, Leigh's sounds stripped from a Brown song: "I'm going to live free."

It's harder to live free when you have a parka and ear-warmers, but that's what we'll have to endure to see one of country's most unpredictable bands. We just hope the band's booking agent keeps us in mind when summer comes around.

Zac Brown Band with Sonia Leigh, Nic Cowan

When • Saturday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m.

Where • Maverik Center, 3200 S. Decker Lake Drive, West Valley City

Tickets • $43 to $76.25 at Ticketmaster outlets