Fuller House: Mike Fuller Gets Ready To Open For Duane Betts At Broward Center

By Joanie Cox Henry

Most musicians dream of playing the Broward Center. Musician Mike Fuller not only works there by day. He is also opening for Duane Betts and Palmetto Motel at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, on May 29, 2026. It's the kind of full-circle moment that sounds almost too good to be true, but Fuller is refreshingly low-key about the whole thing.

"It's definitely a pinch-me moment," he says, smiling.

The Man Behind the Curtain

Fuller relocated from New York City to South Florida about three years ago, following a stint at a music distribution company where he learned the backend mechanics of publishing and getting music into the world. The Broward Center gig came through a combination of timing, curiosity, and a little bit of fate.

"I kind of came across the listing and was like, wow, this would be a really cool chance to see the other side," he says. "Whereas the experience before was more of like, how do you bring your art together and share it out into the world, and then what? You just go back and you create again and you play again, over and over again. But there's also that whole other element of going out on the road and putting your heart in front of other people."

Now he sits at the intersection of both worlds every single day. Half his colleagues at the Broward Center are musicians or singers themselves. Multiple shows run on any given evening. The creative electricity is constant.

"Being in a place like the Broward Center, where every night of the week there are five shows going on, this place is just bursting with creative energy," he says. "It's a really inspiring place to be."

Ask Fuller to describe his original music and he cuts straight to it: "Rock and roll with a little bit of soul." He grew up on the Beatles and the Stones, absorbed the late nineties and early 2000s alternative wave, and let it all blend together into something he calls his own. His upcoming set at the Broward Center will lean heavily into that catalog of originals, with a few surprises sprinkled in on the day of the show.

"I was really trying to explore just the process of songwriting and storytelling. I don't know if I've been accused of being a good storyteller at any point in my life so far," he says with a grin. "I tried to prove to myself that I could do it. And I don't know if the songs are great or will stand the test of time, but they felt really good writing them and even better recording them. I'm excited to release them out into the wild."

Lightning Bolts and the 9-to-5 Method

Fuller writes in waves more than on a schedule, though he's working toward something closer to the latter. He references a quote he's fond of, slightly paraphrased, about an artist who said inspiration strikes for him every day from nine to five. The point being: you sit down and you do the work, and eventually the work does something back.

"Some days you're lucky enough to have the lightning bolt moment where the idea just kind of chooses you and zaps you and stops you in your tracks," he says. "But other days you sit down and you work and you work and you work and you hope something comes through. And if it doesn't, you gave it your best shot."

Balancing gigs, recording sessions, and a full-time day job means the writing happens when the space opens up. He's making it work.

Kissed by Fate: Opening for Sixpence None The Richer

Before the Duane Betts booking, Fuller had already banked one of those moments musicians hold onto forever. He got the call to open for Sixpence None The Richer, the band behind "Kiss Me," one of the most inescapable songs of the late nineties and a fixture on what feels like every romantic comedy soundtrack ever assembled.

"That was like one of the biggest songs on the radio at the time," Fuller says. "Wow, you know, getting to run around backstage and meet the lead singer, and just getting to see that there's this real human behind all of this, it was kind of a trip."

The experience gave him a rare and oddly grounding perspective: for one night, at least, he was a peer.

"I couldn't have dreamt up something like that," he says, "definitely not sitting on the school bus in middle school blasting 'Kiss Me.'"

On AI, Authenticity, and What a Room Full of People Actually Feels Like

Fuller doesn't shy away from the elephant in every creative room right now. Asked about artificial intelligence and what it means for singer-songwriters, he goes quiet for just a second before landing exactly where you'd hope he would.

"It's like that meme with the dog in a burning building," he says, laughing. "'This is fine.' Yeah, it's scary." He acknowledges that AI-generated bands have already started popping up, fooling listeners until the reveal. But he's not convinced the human element goes anywhere.

"The truth, the human emotion element of songwriting and music and art in general, I don't think that's going to go away," he says. "Especially live performance. I hope we're not anywhere close to being able to replicate what it feels like to be in a room full of people enjoying an experience together."

He believes audiences are sharper than they get credit for. They sense inauthenticity whether it comes from a robot or a human being who's phoning it in.

"People are smart. You can't fool the audience," he adds. "They know more than they get credit for, and sometimes they know more about it than you do as the artist. If there are elements of disingenuousness, people sniff that stuff out right away."

A Solo Spotlight

On May 29, Fuller takes the Broward Center stage solo, just him and a guitar. It's a format he's grown into over years of playing bars, restaurant gigs, and songwriter nights across South Florida, slowly shedding the discomfort that comes with putting your own music in front of strangers.

"I'm not a big attention person. That's not at all why I started playing music or performing in general," he says. "But you get more comfortable doing it over and over again. You kind of lose the butterflies over time. I've been lucky enough to get out and play down here enough that I'm a lot more comfortable interacting while I'm up there and just leaving the proverbial bedroom as a musician to come out and do it in front of other people."

He's also excited to catch Duane Betts in action. Fuller remembers seeing Betts tear through a set as a guest guitarist with the band Dawes years back.

"He was just ripping. It was outrageous. Really, really good stuff," he says. "So I'm excited to get to watch him do his own thing for the first time."

Mike Fuller performs on May 29 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, opening for Duane Betts and Palmetto Motel. His music is on all streaming platforms and on Instagram at @mikeFullersounds.