Concert Wrap: Gary Allan, Aug. 13 @ The AMP
August 14th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Gary Allan
Gary Allan‘s guitarist set the message early with what he wore.
It’s this: You can’t have a purely strictly country concert when one of the band members wears a kilt and combat boots.
Oh, sure, you can find Gary Allan on country radio stations, and he fits there as well as any of the other Top 40 county artists. You might even have to go to the ‘country’ bin at the local record store (or more likely, the ‘country’ section of iTunes) to find his music.
But what he does live is little short of a rock concert in its instrumentation, attitude and pacing. Allan has long existed on the fringes between the genres, and in a live structure, he fell more to the rock ’n’ roll side of that spectrum.
I never thought I’d say this, but I sure wish Gary Allan was a little more country.
Because when he decorated his loose jams about pain and heartache with pedal steel and fiddle, it took what was a pleasant but warm evening at the Arkansas Music Pavilion in Fayetteville on Friday (Aug. 13) night and cranked up the heat to smoldering.
Allan, despite the heat of a hundred degree day that remained into the evening, brought out a crowd of more than 2,000 for what has to be one of the better AMP crowds of the year.
They came out to see a country star who has rather consistently offered a few new hits with every new album. “Nothing On But The Radio” comes from 2004, “Watching Airplanes” comes from late 2007 and “Get Off On The Pain” comes from earlier this year. All were received by singalongs when Allan launched them Friday night. The reception to these and other hits was such that Allan frequently took the chorus off, allowing the crowd to sing it instead.
He let the mood flatline a few times, however, when he took on the role of an acoustic guitar-playing balladeer instead of high-powered rocker. With the exception of “Life Ain’t Always Beautiful,” which has a lot of lyrical teeth, his slower moments were his weaker ones.
Allan and his muscular sounding backing band put the pedal down at the end of the set, however, closing with “Watching Aeroplanes” and the encore, an absolutely sizzling “Drinking Dark Whiskey,” during which the pedal steel player obliged by playing the instrument with a bottle of Jack Daniels as a slide. With the addition of a fiddle solo, it made for the most countrified – and best – song of the entire evening. I realize that you’re supposed to go out with your best, and Allan and crew did just that, but it left me wishing for more from the earlier parts of the evening: more prominent pedal steel, more fiddle runs, and more mandolin, which was used sparingly throughout the night.
I wanted more country, I guess.
About the openers:
Wade Bowen
Wade Bowen opened up with a hour long set of mid-tempo country rock. Bowen, too, is hardly strictly country, with three guitars, keyboards, bass and drums to add weight to his songs.
He may have hit his peak with his opener, “Nobody’s Fool.” Elsewhere, it was hard to discern much emotion from the Texan. I’ve seen Bowen before, and perhaps it was the heat, but I thought he was a little flat this time around. That’s not to say that there wasn’t a pleasant vibe, but it lacked the elusive quality that was going to make people rave about it after they left the venue.
There was another artist on the bill, too, Eric Paslay. The lanky Texan has quite the voice and performed a solo acoustic set prior to Bowen’s arrival. He may have caught more attention if he had a backing band. I heard he had recently signed to Columbia Records, so perhaps he’ll find the boost he needs there.
Gary Allan set list: 1) Get Off On The Pain; 2) She’s So California; 3) A Feelin’ Like That; 4) Nothin’ On But the Radio; 5) It Would Be You; 6) Learning How To Bend; 7) Best I Ever Had; 8) Life Ain’t Always Beautiful; 9) Just Got Back From Hell; 10) Right Where I Need To Be; 11) The One; 12) I think the song was “Trying To Matter,” but my notes aren’t clear; 13) Her Man; 14) Today: 15) Smoke Rings In The Dark; 16) Songs About Rain; 17) Kiss Me When I’m Down; 18) did not catch the title of this track; 19) Watching Airplanes
Encore: 20) Drinking Dark Whiskey