photo by Leslie Paczosa
It was a rare summer concert at the Cruzan Amphitheatre where we didn’t get any rain, but that does not mean that nobody got soaked. The humidity was intense, and everyone was drenched from the moment they stepped foot on that stage.
The show started with The Henningsens. While new to most folks, they’ve been around awhile as songwriters, having co-written the hits “You Lie” and “All Your Life” for The Band Perry as well as several other album cuts for various artists. They are comprised of father Brian Henningsen, his son Aaron, and his daughter Clara, the lead singer of the band. As the crowd started to come in from their tailgate parties, they put on a good show highlighted by their version of “You Lie,” their next single “I Miss You,” and their hit debut single, “American Beautiful.”
Chris Young was next to take the stage. I have seen him perform many times, and it is evident that being on tour with Jason Aldean two years ago and Brad Paisley this year has really helped him step his entertainment value up a few notches. The Nashville Star alum has always had a great voice, but his show is now a high energy, playful performance in which he works the crowd really well. His set included some new tunes off his upcoming A.M. album, as well as his hits such as “Getting You Home,” Voices,” “Aw Naw,” “The Man I Wanna Be,” “You,” “Neon,” and “Tomorrow.” About two thirds of the way through he performed “Sharp Dressed Man” as a lead-in to his band intro before diving into “I Can Take It From There.” At one point in the song he stopped to ask the crowd if they knew who Conway Twitty was to an arousing ovation. He closed his set with fan-favorite “Save Water, Drink Beer.” Considering how popular the song is, I am surprised that it was never released as a single.
Brad Paisley closed out the evening with a great performance, mixing in songs off his latest album Wheelhouse along with his biggest hits. He started the set off with his last single, “Southern Comfort Zone” then followed it up with “Mud on the Tires.” He then debuted a new song titled “The Mona Lisa” before rocking the joint with “American Saturday Night.” Next up was another new song titled “Outstanding In Our Field” for which Chris Young joined him on stage for. The original album version features Dierks Bentley and Roger Miller on vocals and Hunter Hayes on guitar.
“This Is Country Music” was his next song, and during the first verse he stopped to sign his guitar before handing it to a kid in the crowd. At the end of the song, the video screen showed a picture of George Jones. A fitting end to a perfect song to describe Jones. His next song was “Celebrity” – and this is where the show got kinda weird. Every time he got to the word “reality,” the goat from the Taylor Swift spoof video popped up on the screen with an obnoxious scream. I admit it was funny the first time, but by the end of the song, it was a bit annoying. Paisley then dove into a medley of his softer hits, “Then” and “She’s Everything,” which featured a long guitar solo.
Paisley then proceeded to announce that he had the best band out there, which led to an instrumental medley that then led into a cover of “Hot For Teacher” which included the annoying goat again. Once that was over, he started to walk through the crowd singing “Old Alabama” as he made his way to a small stage set up in section 6 (back-middle of the seating zone) so that he could play closer to the folks in the lawn. Once again the goat made an appearance at the end of this song.
Once he was settled on the small stage, the band took a break as he performed “Waitin’ on a Woman” while the late Andy Griffith spoke his parts on the video screen. This little tribute never gets old. Some of his band members joined him on the small stage to play “Online” and “I’m Still a Guy.”
The band returned to the stage while he made his way back towards it singing “Beat This Summer” after asking fans to pull out their cell phones to open up a special light show app made specifically for this song. I missed the announcement earlier in the evening and didn’t see any signage promoting this app, and I think a lot of fans did as well, as it didn’t seem to go over too well in the crowd with nothing unusual visible from my vantage point.
He finished his set with “I’m Gonna Miss Her,” another new song titled “Karate” which featured Charlie Daniels on the video screen, “Remind Me” with Carrie Underwood on the video screen, “The World,” “Water,” “Ticks,” and finally “Alcohol.”
Besides an overuse of the screaming goat, it was another great performance with solid support acts by Brad Paisley. While we’ve gotten to see Paisley come to West Palm Beach yearly for years, his show is always fresh and doesn’t get old. Personally he is one of my favorite entertainers and the highlights for me were “Old Alabama,” “This Is Country Music,” “Waitin’ on a Woman,” and “Beat This Summer,” goat excluded. If you ever have a chance to take in one of his shows, I highly recommend it!