This review of Luke Bryan’s Charlotte show may not seem positive. But does it matter?
There comes a point in every Luke Bryan concert — and I know a little bit about Luke Bryan concerts, having been to five in the past six years — when Luke Bryan manages to go off the rails.
Sometimes it’s scary, like when he slipped and fell into the crowd at his 2014 show in Charlotte. (I missed that one, but it was a whole deal; you can look it up on YouTube.) Sometimes it’s Mother Nature’s fault, like in 2016, when torrential downpours forced concertgoers back to their cars and delayed the end of the show by an hour.
And sometimes it’s just weird. Like on Friday night in the middle of his headlining set at PNC Music Pavilion.
“This is my NASCAR capital of the world right here, Charlotte,” the country singer said as he looked out at a sea of about 20,000 fans. “The world of tobacco and moonshine. Tobacco. Let’s just smoke. Smoke tobacco. Chew that s---. Drink moonshine. And die early. Die early before you get too old. Right? That’s my plan.”
There were some cheers, I think, only because people didn’t know how else to respond.
Then: “I’m sure y’all love paying taxes, right? Who loves to pay taxes?”
This time, there were some boos, and fans meant them.
“Damn, y’all making me feel like Blake Shelton. I never been booed,” Bryan continued. “So ... just remember, when y’all spend money on one of my concerts, your money goes to good causes, OK?” He proceeded to explain that those causes include corn to put in his deer feeders, food for the fish in his lake, and a duck farm he claims he had purchased earlier in the day.
What made this all even crazier is that it turned out to a set-up for his cover of the 2021 Hot Country No. 1 that he was featured on, Jordan Davis’s “Buy Dirt” — which is about how the things that make life rich AREN’T material possessions.
Now, if it seems like I’m blowing all of this out of proportion ... that’s because I am.
Because these days, I think the only proper way to write about a Luke Bryan concert is to accentuate the stuff that you don’t see at every other Luke Bryan concert.
For instance, we could — and should — point out Bryan’s revisiting of “Good Directions” (a song he co-wrote that was recorded by Billy Currington in 2005), performed while sitting at an upright piano, with opener Mitchell Tenpenny accompanying him on vocals and an acoustic guitar.
Not content to play it totally straight, Bryan put a twist on the first verse:
I was sittin’ there sellin’ turnips on a flatbed truck
Crunchin’ on a pork rind when she pulled up
She had to be thinkin’ this is where —
And instead of the original words, “— rednecks come from,” Bryan crooned “North Carolina Taaaaaar Heels” to thunderous cheers and a smattering of boos.
Then he recast the line again: “She had to be thinkin’ this is where —” here he inserted a brief pause for dramatic effect — “Duke Bluuuuue Devilssss...” (Not quite as thunderous cheers, a slightly larger collection of boos mixed in.)
Then one more time: “NC Staate Wooooolfpack...” (Roughly the same response as Duke, I’d say?)
“Y’all got a lot of damn colleges around here!” he shouted, having sufficiently riled the crowd up at a fairly random time, in a fairly random fashion, with Tenpenny patiently laughing along.
We also could — and will — point out Bryan’s apparent man-crush on another of his opening acts, Riley Green.
About 30 minutes into his set, Bryan gave a quick salute to Tenpenny and Green, and of the latter, he noted, “That’s a pretty man. That’s a pretty man.” Later, when he brought Green out for a medley of classic country songs, the mention of tequila shots gave Bryan an excuse to serenade Green with a quick bit of Joe Nichols’ “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off,” for which he teasingly subbed in the word “Riley” for the word “Her.”
For fans of Green and of non-bro-ish country, this stretch of the concert likely was a highlight.
On stage just the two of them, each holding an acoustic guitar, they wove together a sweetly excellent medley that started with “Two Dozen Roses” by Shenandoah; one line into the next song — “Sunday in the South,” another by the Muscle Shoals legends — Bryan warned, “If you don’t know who Shenandoah is, you might need to go take a pee break right now.”
If you’d taken his advice, you would have missed Bryan at his countriest, as the pair went on to also crank out twangy mini-covers of Travis Tritt’s “Here’s a Quarter,” Joe Diffie’s “John Deere Green,” and David Allan Coe’s “You Never Even Called Me By My Name.”
Most of the rest of the time, Bryan was at his ... regular-est? Or, maybe better to say: His Luke Bryan-est.
Like he always does, he wore a baseball-style cap that he turned frontwards then backwards then frontwards then backwards then frontwards then backwards. Then frontwards. Then backwards. Then ... well, you get the picture.
Like he always does, he drank a margarita during “One Margarita” and a beer during “Drink a Beer.” (He also downed tequila shots throughout the night that were smaller than any tequila shot you’ve ever seen.)
Like he always does, he at some point during every uptempo song stood with his feet planted in a wide stance while moving his hips around like he’s doing the hula hoop.
Like he always does, he covered part of a pop song (in this case, Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”) that allows him to use a falsetto voice.
And like he always does, he changed pretty much every in-song reference to his home state of Georgia to “Carolina.”
Since 2012, Bryan — who celebrated his 46th birthday last Sunday — has performed at the big outdoor amphitheater near the border of Charlotte and Concord a staggering nine times. He basically comes every summer, unless there’s a global pandemic. In fact, it’s getting harder and harder to find reviews of his tours, and I suspect reviewers don’t bother for the same reason they don’t bother covering, say, Jimmy Buffett or Dave Matthews anymore.
In other words, there’s probably no point.
He’ll be back again next year, the show will once again sell out, and even if Bryan produces close to the exact same show he always does, it’ll be a really, really fun night. Yet again.
If you’re a fan of Luke Bryan, you certainly don’t need me to tell you that.
One more thing worth mentioning
A good concert sign-language interpreter can elevate the task to joyous, joyful art form, and the two young women who spent the night switching off to sing/sign Bryan’s parade of hits weren’t good. They were great.
I have no idea what their names were, since he never introduced them; no idea really what they look like, since they never made it up onto the big video screens; no idea whether they’re local hires or employed by the tour. But on the off-chance that they are from Charlotte: If you know them, please email me.
They’re worth a story, I think...
Luke Bryan’s setlist
1. “I Don’t Want This Night to End”
2. “Kick the Dust Up”
3. “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”
4. “One Margarita”
5. “Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset”
6. “Huntin’, Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day”
7. “Country On”
8. “What Makes You Country”
9. “Most People Are Good”
10. “Drunk on You”
11. “Buy Dirt”
12. “Strip It Down”
13. “Do I”
14. “Good Directions”
15. “Two Dozen Roses”/“Sunday in the South”/“Here’s a Quarter”/“John Deere Green”/“You Never Even Called Me By My Name”
16. “Drink a Beer”
17. “Roller Coaster”
18. “Knockin’ Boots”
19. “Move”
20. “Play It Again”
21. “That’s My Kind of Night”
22. “Country Girl (Shake It for Me)“
This story was originally published July 23, 2022 at 12:36 PM.
