Dierks Bentley opening for Brad Paisley - June 5 2009

It was a rainy Friday in June - and it had been a very rainy week - so much rain I was starting to think it was time to build an ark!! But like the Postal Service… “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds”. Such is the case also for Brad Paisley’s (and Direks Bentley’s) fans!! There was some precipitation throughout the entire concert, but that couldn’t stop the big lawn party for opening concert of the American Saturday Night tour.

To set the tone… here’s the Crowd on the Lawn:



As Rich astutely pointed out, it was a much younger crowd this concert (defined as shorter skirts and lower-cut shirts). Definitely less overalls than the George Strait concert! And with that also come the illegality all around us - underage drinking and a distinctive, aroma in the air J that reminds one of college… You don’t get great Kodak moments of the stage from the lawn seats - but it is definitely an experience at every concert!! And the people-watching is hard to top!

Unfortunately, I missed the opening act, Jimmy Wayne (again! I know - I sense a theme, too). Which I did want to make since he’s from “around these parts”, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I’m sure he was great.

We did make it for the Dierks Bentley segment - even though Rich had to break the posted speed limits on several major highways to make it on time. And BOY, was it worth it. From the opening song - the rowdy new single Sideways - to the very end - Dierks ROCKED the HOUSE!! His energy abounds and just overflows to the whole audience. He’s at that stage of his career where you don’t automatically WANT to go see him live when you hear his name, but every song he plays, you say “I love this song - I forgot he sang it”.

He played most all his hits: Every Mile a Memory, Feel That Fire, Trying to Stop Your Leaving, Free and Easy Down the Road I Go and more. One of the trademarks of country artists (and one of the things we fans like) is that the songs at concerts sound like they do on the albums - or at least very close. And when he strayed from the norm to inject a lot more bluegrass into Come a Little Closer, it was a sweet diversion and completely enjoyable.

You don’t often see an opening act leave and come back for an encore, but it was well-played. His finale was What Was I Thinking and it’s definitely a crowd-pleaser… Even made me decide to wear a “little white tank top” the next time I see Dierks Bentley!

It was an incredibly enjoyably performance… Although I can’t honestly say that Dierks Bentley should be headlining this year, you’ll be hard-pressed to find may opening acts this strong!

And, as a side note - just in case you don’t already have enough reasons to love this guy - I read this week that at his home in Nashville, he has a fence/gate in his driveway and has 2 holes cut in it that could look to some like modern art deco. But really they’re “peepholes” for his two dogs, Jake (who you saw in the What Was I Thinking video) and George. The holes are cut at their head heights so they can see what’s going on the neighborhood. How can you not love this guy!! Plus he's on Twitter and he twitters himself all the time - where he's headed around Nashville, what music he's listening to, etc. It's great!



And then there was BRAD!!

Okay… I know Kenny Chesney gets all the credit and accolades for “best concert ever”, but I have to honestly say that Brad Paisley puts on the best show in country music - at least he did last year - and this year was better! (Disclaimer - I haven’t seen Carrie or Keith or Sugarland, so I can’t comment on those). And this is coming from a die-hard Toby Keith fan!!

Perhaps its because his songs are just so much damn fun - think Mud On The Tires, I’m Gonna Miss Her, Celebrity and [my personal favorite] Online. Part of the credit also has to go to his new, improved stage graphics that must include 57 tv’s/screens showing 1 - 50 pictures at one time. Sometimes this can take away from a performance but in this case, it really enhanced it. He didn’t just display the videos from the songs, as some artists do - he really enhanced them or brought more life to them.



There are those (Rich!) that only like to hear hits at concerts and don’t enjoy the new songs introduced during the performances. This may the first time in history that the new songs were as enjoyable as the the hits - well almost. The graphics certainly helped the cause - you could almost see a video-in-the-making. But overall it had to be the catchy lyrics… another fishing song about a wife asking her husband how long he’ll be at the lake that day with the answer being “’til we catch all the fish and drink all the beer”… Now what’s not to love about that ultimate country song? I predict a future hit…



We all know Brad has a humorous side - you’ve read stories of his pranks on the road with his opening acts et al. But on his albums, he also frequently interjects that humor with at least one track from the “King Pow Buckaroos”. In the concert, the awesome graphics gave us a cartoon track from “Brad Paisly and the Drama Kings” featuring [cartoon] Toby Keith & Kenny Chesney. Although I generally don’t like diversions from the music it was entertaining.

All in all, it was a superb concert and definitely worth fighting the elements to see it. I could be naïve, but it seemed to me that Brad was genuinely surprised/touched/impressed/thankful that there was such a FULL & ENGAGED crowd there to see him [and Dierks] in the rain!

I love Toby (who’s coming in July), but it’s going to be quite hard [imho] to beat Brad/Dierks for “Concert of the year”. Not counting Carrie or Keith, who I won’t be seeing.