Photos and Review by Micah Gummel
Jason Aldean Photos: HERE
Florida Georgia Line Photos: HERE
Opening the show in front of a sold out show at The Verizon Wireless Arena full of screaming fans was the genre cross over band Florida Georgia Line. FGL has had as big a couple of years as a country rookies could imagine: the duo’s “Cruise” was the biggest country song of the year on every genre chart Billboard has, with a single of the year honor at the Country Music Association Awards.
Without a doubt in my mind Florida Georgia Line is one of the great country bands in existence today driven by their unique ability to bridge the gap between rock and hip-hop while staying true to their country roots.
Lead singer Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelly might have the country boy voice but their stage presence is all around rock. Armed with wireless mics the two singers spent most of the night running around the front of the stage slapping the hands of their cowboy boot wearing fans. Not hiding behind a mic stand or guitar but front and center singing their hearts out right in the face of their fans.
Now on to the headliner hailing from Georgia Jason Aldean’s best known among the three and the reigning Academy of Country Music Male Vocalist of the Year Aldean has taken country music by storm. Debuting less than a decade ago, and still able to sell out the Verizon Wireless Arena –NH last Thursday night with a 19-song set that included 16 Top 10 country hits. Now on to the show just before Aldean took the stage, the set extended, descended, and lit up as if it were the mother ship landing. At touchdown in the distance it all started to take shape as we were placed at a railroad station at night presumably identifying the tour as the “Night Train Tour”.
Flanked by a relatively bare-bones band — drums, bass, two electric guitars, and a member splitting time between pedal steel and banjo Aldean emerged with his trademark off white cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes and gave a sturdy, engaging, but relatively direct showcase of what’s rapidly becoming one of the genre’s best and most consistent songbooks. Eleven of 19 songs were singles released since 2010, even going back to his 2006 song “Amarillo Sky.”
Though there were a few love songs sprinkled into the mix Aldean and gigantic power ballad “Don’t You Wanna Stay” Aldean’s true, constant subject is small-town life, as lived and as remembered.
Aldean has recently found success — commercial and artistic with sepia-toned small-town testimonials. There was “Fly Over States,” which made its case against bicoastal narrow-mindedness without needlessly demonizing city slickers who thoughtlessly deploy the insult. There was the wistful “Tattoos on This Town,” an elegant and finely detailed bit of nostalgia that also carries a subtle, knowingly rueful edge. (“We laid a lot of memories down/And we’ll always be hanging ‘round.”)
There was “Night Train,” which Aldean introduced by speaking directly to “his guys” in the crowd, and he’s probably more relatable to male fans than most current male country stars. “I’m going to give you some dating advice, because I think I’m damn good at it,” Aldean said, before breaking into a smile. “Actually, that’s a lie. I suck at it.” The song evokes a young, small-town couple working through their night moves aided by a pickup truck, a blanket, and a fifth of Southern Comfort, and earns its Bob Seger comparison.
Best of all was “Dirt Road Anthem,” which is far more subdued than seems possible for any song with rapped verses and the word “anthem” in the title. Following the tone of the song, which drew the warmest crowd response of the night, the presentation was simple, the big screens behind and flanking the stage showing only a wall of amplifiers.
Aldean’s embrace of rural culture here is modest and matter-of-fact “We like cornbread and biscuits/And if it’s broke round here we fix it” while taking a dim view of the boredom that can set in “All this small-town he-said, she-said … man, that talk is getting old.” And the performance achieved the perhaps unequalled feat of making an easy marriage of country and the rap with which Aldean and most of his fans grew up. The secret: Aldean doesn’t seem impressed or amused with himself for doing it. And that comfortable-in-your-skin naturalism explains much of his appeal.
Florida Georgia Line
Jason Aldean