Hit ‘80s country music band reunites with long estranged former member

A historic moment happened at one of Alabama’s recent concerts.

The country music band surprised fans with special reunion during their show at the Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama on Saturday night, Aug. 23.

Before Alabama’s last song of the night, “Mountain Music,” singer/guitarist Randy Owen and bassist/backing singer Teddy Gentry, the group’s two surviving founding members, were joined onstage by drummer Mark Herndon.

The performance marked the first time that Herndon played with the band in more than 20 years, according to a Facebook post from Alabama. The last time Herndon played with Alabama was during a 2003 to 2004 farewell tour.

“I felt like a little kid all day,” Herndon said, according to PEOPLE. “It was so cathartic for everybody. I think it was on God’s time. I really do. It was magic all over again.”

Herndon was Alabama’s longtime touring drummer. He joined the group — consisting of Owen, Gentry, and now-deceased guitarist Jeff Cook — in the late ‘70s. Herndon was part of the group when Alabama reached their peak of fame in ‘80s — racking up 26 country No. 1 hits, earning several multi-platinum albums and winning numerous major awards.

In 2008, as reported by USA Today, Alabama sued Herndon for around $200,000 in alleged overpayments following the band’s last tour. Herndon denied the allegations.

When Owen, Gentry and Cook reformed Alabama in 2013, Herndon was left out of the reunion. Owen told the press Herndon was never an official band member. And although Herndon was pictured in band photos and on albums, that was at the behest of Alabama’s label, RCA Records, and Alabama used session drummers in the studio drummer.

“They [RCA Records] wanted the four [members] so they could compare it to The Beatles,” Owen said in a 2014 interview with the Tennessean.

“I never thought anything about it because everybody knew Mark had nothing to do with the structure with Alabama,” he continued. “He didn’t play on the albums. He was just on the stage with us, as were several other people. Had we been smart enough, there never would have been four people in the pictures.”

Owen added that he doesn’t “have one thing against [Herndon] in any way in the world.”

After the show Saturday night, Gentry explained how he always hoped to play with Alabama again.

“I don’t burn bridges,” Gentry said, per PEOPLE. “Me and Mark continued to be friends over the years.”

Alabama has several shows scheduled from now through October, including an Oct. 9 show at the DCU Center in Worcester.