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Paisley, Bentley fueled by ‘Alcohol’
It’s a good thing Brad Paisley has a song called ‘Alcohol.’
The fans who attend the Country Concert at Hickory Hill Lakes would be the first to admit drinking is a key part of the weekend.
So Paisley’s rendition of the song was a welcome part of his performance. It didn’t hurt that Dierks Bentley and Luke Bryan assisted in the tune.
Speaking of Bentley, he performed ahead of Paisley and impressed the crowd as much, opening with ‘Sideways’ and ‘A Whole Lot of Leavin’ Left To Do’.
I thought Kristian Bush of Sugarland ran across the stage a lot, but Bentley sprints.
He performed at the concert three years ago, too.
“Did you guys miss us?” he asked.
Roars were his answer.
At one point, he enlisted a female fan in the front row to pretend to be on a date with him before introducing the song of the ill-fated date, ‘What Was I Thinkin.’
After Bentley, Paisley started at 10 p.m. and played until about midnight. Ten minutes later, he was doing a meet-and-greet with about 20 fans. About half of them got pictures without his hat, which is a rare sight.
His concert was full of its usual spectacular animation, his own hits, covers of others and combinations of some of the two.
“We’re gonna sing all the songs we know,” he told the crowd at the beginning.
He started his performance in the audience. Getting close to the audience was almost his literal downfall. During the encore, he walked to a steep area of the right corner of the stage, slid and was caught by two startled crew members.
Otherwise, it was a smooth performance of the fellow who can crack an off-color joke and write a love song.
In singing ‘I’m Still A Guy,’ the line, ‘You see a famous French painting; I see a drunk naked girl.’ He gestured at some of the minimally dressed gals in the audience and did an ‘Oh shucks’ gesture.
Songs like ‘I’m Gonna Miss Her’, ‘Ticks’, ‘Mud on the Tires’ and others filled the night. During ‘The World’, the screen showed various famous sights across the planet, including Fort Loramie.
But Paisley is proud of his guitar playing and does a lot his animation, he says, to keep the crowd interested while he plays lengthy solos.
So at Saturday’s performance, he played for about five minutes straight while a cartoon about a hero saving country superstars played. It started with these words on the screen: “In a world where country singers are under attack, who will save them?”
It went on to show super hero Paisley saving Carrie Underwood tied on train tracks, Kenny Chesney being attacked by robots on a beach, Reba McIntire being chased by a dinosaur and Alan Jackson, Martina McBride and Sugarland being threatened by a bomb, which the super hero threw out the window.
When faced with a tied up Toby Keith being tortured by the Dixie Chicks, the screen read, “We’ll stay out of this one.”
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