My mom has always gently chided me to go and see Brad Paisley again(We'd seen him at Mizzou Arena in December 2006) in concert with her and I've never wanted to waste one of my vacation days to do so. Lo and behold my off day this week was on Friday the 17th, the same day his H20 II Tour was coming to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in St. Louis and she decided she wanted to go.
We arrived there around 4:30 and could hear Blake Shelton doing his soundcheck singing Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down, while all the lawn seat people were lining up waiting to get their spots. The gates opened at 4, due to the fact that Paisley had all sorts of water themed activities to partake in as well, as a smaller stage with three acts playing, which was the only reason we arrived that early.
Eden's Edge, a bluegrass/gospel tinged pop country act was the first one to hit the stage. They played seven songs. I guess their best known song was called Amen, which has just hit the Top 40 Country chart. They were enjoyable and played an interesting cover of something. I can't recall at the moment...EDIT: They played covers of Hey, Soul Sister and Boondocks, if i remember correctly.
Next up was Sunny Sweeney, the one I was most interested in seeing. Best known for her song, From A Table Away and I'd heard a few of her other songs. She has a really nice voice and little bit of rowdy attitude, which matches her band's sound. It was a good mix, as the guitarist was rocking pretty hard, but you could hear the steel player and the fiddler at times. The fiddler as I thought I recognized was mid-Missouri's own Jake Clayton. She had another good tune, Everyone Else Can Kiss My Ass ?. If I Could, Staying's Worse Than Leaving and Drink Myself Single were other songs. She played eight songs total and I was really impressed with her...
Finally was the JaneDear Girls, best known for their song Wildflower. They have more of a pop country sound in the vein of Taylor Swift and have the teenage girl sounding voices though too. I think they played seven songs, including covers of Goodbye Earl, and She's Country. Their band looked like some kind of hybrid of styles and they did a bunch of hopping around. The funniest part was during the first song, the blonde of the duo, who were both wearing four-inch heels was coming down from a riser in front of the drums, fell down and about busted her face...
Then with about 40 minutes until the acts hit the main stage, we went and found our seats. They were about 30 some rows back straightaway center, not bad, but if I would have waited until Friday, could have got some about 20 rows back... One thing I noticed was that there were black people in the audience, which I don't think I've ever seen at a country show. Heck that was more than I've seen at Springsteen's show!...
Jerrod Niemann came out first before 7:30 I believe and did roughly a seven song, half an hour set. To me he was a Scott Bakula look alike and had a frat boy party country sound, with several songs about drinking. One was a humorous story about college and waking up with a professor. He also preformed a cover of Steive Ray Vaughan's Pride and Joy, Good Ride Cowboy which he wrote with Garth Brooks and left with his song Lover, Lover a cover of You Don't Treat Me No Good. But he was a pretty good entertainer and I was surprised I enjoyed his set.
After a 15 minute set change, Mr. Miranda Lambert, oops... I mean Blake Shelton came up. He played an 11 song set four about 5o minutes. Overall I was disappointed in his part. He started off fine with All About Tonight and Some Beach getting the crowd going. He then went into a story about the different kinds of music his family all listened too, preforming a medley of Play That Funky Music White Boy/Centerfold/My Prerogative before jumping into Kiss My Country Ass. Then he shifted into some of his ballads, right in a row, which drew a lot of energy out of the show, none of which I can really recall. Toward the end he played Austin and his current single Honey Bee, then Hillbilly Bone and closed with Ol' Red. And he also seemed to play up the country and redneck angles, delivering the same diatribes he probably does at every show, which of course the crowd eats up. And sounding like my old man, he didn't play The Baby, Playboys of the Southwestern World, Nobody But Me or The More I Drink... Or maybe he's ready for a longer slot or his own headlining gig...
Set List
All About Tonight
Some Beach
Play That Funky Music/Centerfold/My Prerogative
Kiss My Country Ass
Who Are You When I'm Not Looking
She Wouldn't Be Gone
Home
Austin
Honey Bee
Hillbilly Bone
Ol' Red
Finally, at around 9:20 the lights dimmed and and a video version of Brad Paisley started singing This Is Country Music, before the real Brad came from somewhere off to the side or back of the seats and made his way to the stage opening with Mud on the Tires. He kept the energy going early and I got one early favorite with Ticks, that wasn't out yet when I'd see him in Columbia. At the very stat his voice sounded very squeaky and the bass was very loud in the mix. He ended up playing 22 songs for around 100 minutes.
Set List
Mud on the Tires
Welcome to the Future
Ticks
Working on a Tan
She's My Everything
Celebrity
Don't Drink the Water
Country Boy Can Survive>I'm Still a Guy
Waitin' on a Woman
When I Get Where I'm Going
The World
Camouflage
Letter to Me
I'm Gonna Miss Her
This is Country Music
Eastwood (Instrumental)
Online
American Saturday Night
Then
Water
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Old Alabama
Alcohol
He had a nice mix of hits, album cuts of his current album which were enjoyable and songs I hadn't seen before. I think the only I was disappointed he didn't play was Whiskey Lullaby, which he probably didn't do because he didn't have a female singer on the main bill to sing the female part. Though I guess he could have pulled Sweeney or one of the the girls from the earlier groups....
Highlights for me were the aforementioned Ticks, American Saturday Night, and his current single Old Alabama which I kept waiting and waiting for...Another highlight was Don't Drink the Water, which Blake Shelton came back out and reprised his role on vocals from the album version. This is usually the crap I hate, where one of the previous artists comes back out and they star acts like its a surprise. But here I enjoyed it and like I said it's actually Shelton who does the song with him on the record...
About midway through on Letter to Me and half of I'm Gonna Miss Her, he made his way to the makeshift stage about 10 rows in front of us. He gave the same spiel he did on the live version of the song on his Hits Alive! album about doing songs for the people in the back and that's as close as he used to get going to concerts..The fact he was 10 rows away was a nice bonus, but the fact that I was 10 rows away and couldn't get a good picture with my camera, either tells me I need to learn to take better ones or it's time to get a new phone...
I agree with the Post Dispatch review, in that he seems to rely too much on videos and images, and it takes away from his performance. Paisley is a hell of a guitar player, showing his chops and muscle on the first few numbers. But a lot of it gets lost with all of the distractions...
The bad parts? It seemed like a lot of paint by numbers, same show/dialogue, different city, where it seemed a little to effortless. And during When I Get Where I'm Going, he used the same gimmick he did five years ago, showing pictures of dead and recently deceased celebs, playing the emotion card(But for the record I don't mind the 9/11 pics and solider pics at the very end). And to be fair country concerts/artists set themselves up for all this crap, repeating the same verbatim at most shows. But if the fans wouldn't lap it up, they wouldn't have to do the same dumb them down moves and speeches... Sorry, just the cynical nature...
2nd aside on the subject, I can't stand it when artists play one of their duet songs and they use video of who performed the it on record. He did on Old Alabama, but he's far from the only act that does this. Why is it monkey see, monkey do with the country concert industry?...
And one more aside, can they break themselves away from the three tier act concerts? It's the same old formula, up and comer does their 20 min, then a mid range star or up and coming headliner gets the 50 min set and finally the main act, which to be fair is the only one people really care about. Audiences are too polite though these days, in the old days opening acts better be good or they'd boo you off the stage....
During the finale Alcohol, he brought out a makeshift bar, and a giant headed Brad Paisley mascot as well as all the other performers from throughout the day.
Paisley even with some of my gripes, put on a good concert, played what I wanted to see and for seeing all the acts I did, he was well worth the ticket price. And after a few years and another ten good songs, I'd go see him again.
The worst part was the leaving the parking lot. We wound up waiting 40 minutes before we finally got out. Thankfully most acts I want to see play elsewhere...
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