You don’t normally hear the clip-clop of heels in the swish environs of the men’s bathrooms in the Commercial Bay complex. I had A Moment. Had I mis read the trés modern groovy symbols that distinguished the Boys form the Girls at the entrance? Nah-ah, as they say. Cowboy Boots. God damn! Course. There were more than a few pairs, on the guys and gals, and an array of fine Stetsons, too, at the complex’s Food Court also, where given its adjacence to Jason Aldean, a few of the future fans were enjoying a chow down before hitting Spark Arena.
Indeed, there was a table full of Stetsons available for sale near the gig, including a particularly fetching fuchsia one with glittering silver tassels. I hesitated; it would certainly provide cover from the sun at the Under 17 cricket match I am umpiring on Saturday. Inappropriate? Hmm.
Let’s get inappropriate and controversial out of the way, OK folks?
This fine Country-Rock vocalist and songwriter has been a vocal supporter of Trump, much to the chagrin of many, including some fellow C & W artists. He courted particular controversy over the video of his song, Try That in A Small Town, which was filmed outside the Maury County courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the site of race riots in 1946 and, crucially, the site of a lynching in 1927 of Henry Choate.
Aldean claimed innocence of the connection and fiercely denied the accusations that the song glorified gun violence. The former is a little hard to believe, the latter, when I hear the song later, I kinda agree with and, overall, we’re here for the music.
That said, my date for the night backed out and put her Stetson away in the closet when she read all that. Well, dang it all, I was gonna enjoy myself any old how.
I was at Spark a week ago for Lorde: crowd-wise, compared with tonight, dudes, it’s chalk and camembert.
I have truly never seen so many hand-tooled cowboy boots, of every style and hue and yep, truly, Stetsons aplenty. It was awesome. Such a display. Beautiful folk of all ages, but mostly mid-twenties to mid-thirties, with wardrobes that they clearly save up for an event like this. I truly had no idea this music had such a following, but a mostly packed out venue attests to the popularity of JA, and, as both he and the energetic support act Corey Kent tell us, the uptick in country’s lasso-like grip on the nation’s ears is partly due to us now having a dedicated station for the genre.
iHeart Country got as many big ups as Noo Zeeland! from our deeply Southern friends.
There’s a maybe six-row mosh pit, seating on the floor of the stadium, from which there is more than a flicker of activity when Corey Kent and his be-dungareed band take to the stage around 8pm.
Truly I haven’t seen such an array of farming finery since Dexy’s Midnight Runners released Too-Rye-Ay. Lordy! CK gets a pretty fond response given that he’s a mid-table Texan round these parts, although his exhortations to sing along if y’all know this one fall on sympathetic but largely unmoved ears.
Doesn’t hold him back none, though. Indeed, he extends the set to 45 minutes, giving equal thanks to both Ja and JC himself for the pleasure and privilege of being in Ockland Noo Zealand!
He asks us also to thanks Our Lord Jesus Christ and Saviour which is met with a mixture of enthusiasm and bemusement. We do it a bit differently in the secular South Pacific, Corey boy.
And I guess that’s what I kept coming back to. There’s something about this style of music, that is so distinctive to such a particular area of the US, that seems slightly misplaced in multi-cultural, modern Aotearoa.
I totally respect the genre, believe me, and was warmed by the passionate enthusiasm of the truly faithful, but it feels slightly strange transposed and juxtaposed from Over Yonder to Down Under. It almost feels like dress-up, and I mean no disrespect by this, but that, perhaps, once the show is over, and the boots have bolted from the Uber back in suburbia, they’ll go away quietly into the Country Music Costume Box under the bed, until the next cowpunk rides into town.
When Corey signs off, telling us If you’re not busy living/Then you’re dying slowly, the anticipation goes up a few beats.
The PA plays some Bob Seger from fifty years ago, a piano, drum riser and goddamn pedal steel get moved into place, and things begin heating up. Man, there are A LOT of guitars side stage.
Then the volume rises, the players enter to the backdrop of the grille and blinding headlights of a massive Kenworth truck, kick into Hicktown and suddenly there he is, in the brightest red trucking shirt you could imagine, the expected flared faded jeans and, what did y’all expect, terrific tan cowboy boots. The Stetson, pulled low just-so, hides those baby blues, even on the big screens, and Jason Aldean has arrived, people.
The dude has swagger, for sure, striding the stage lithely, like this generation’s Dwight Yoakam, giving us the odd Chuck Berry type skip, and kicking some serious butt with his hard rocking’ but singalong swag bag of songs.
If he hasn’t crossed your radar, rest assured he is Big Time – two decades of hits, a gazillion nominations and awards both in the Country space and Rock arenas, and, like all hardworking musicians, a million miles of tours under his big-buckled belt.
Curiously, those have mostly been in the domestic USA – this is a rare venture internationally. The fact he’s at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre and then the Rod Laver Arena after this would suggest he truly is an international star.
He rips through a blistering set, covering off the Ones They’ve Come to Hear – Whisky Drink (Do y’all drink whisky in Noo Zeeland?!), Burning it Down, Night Train, a beautifully sung Trouble With Heartbreak and an unironic Big Green Tractor replete with a backdrop of, you guessed it, a lime John Deere.
He pays passing attention to The Issue as he introduces Try That In A Small Town saying, look, you know there was some controversy about this song, but, where I come from, and it seems like y’all are like this, too, you do your thang, I’ll do mine, and we’re cool, y’know? Uh, sure, man.
With a new album due in a couple of months, we get a couple of tastes of something fresh, which, to be fair, doesn’t vary too much from all things old for JA and his cracking band. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
So, what is that signature style?
It’s not country-as-we-know-it: it’s too rawk and roll for that. It’s energetic as all get out, as loud and raw at times as AC-DC, truly, yet with dynamics that dip and sway and allow his fine voice to float above the backing, occasionally.
That backing is your twin-guitar attack, pounding drums from a guy who clearly thinks he’s in Mötley Crue (lose the histrionics, my friend) and a driving, straightforward bottom end.
They’re top musicians, with an array of finery including a Gretsch White Falcon, a beautiful five string bass that gets an outing or two, and a couple of cherry red Rickenbacker’s that are wielded by the front man hisself! Make no mistake, Jase is the Ace card here, the band’s muted black shirts a dull backdrop for his siren-red one.
There are plenty of great moments, probably the pinnacle being when he sits down at the grand piano and plays the duet he released with Carrie Underwood, If I Didn’t Love You, a hit off 2021’s Macon, named after his home town where, due to a precisely timed backing track, Underwood’s part is synced in with the live show, quickly subsuming my bad piano playing with her soaring vocal parts. She even appears on the big screen, as if beamed in from heaven. (Jim) beam me up, Scotty!
The other highlight, among a night of them, was Dirt Road Anthem the song he credits for putting him on the map, which, given it’s not an original and it’s, er, Country Rap (is that even A Thing?) shows he’s prepared to take a chance or two. It paid off, handsomely, clearly.
An hour and a quarter in, he declares the party is really gonna get started now. It’s gonna get loud and you guys need to get wild, he says with that Southern charm, jewellery glinting in the stage lights.
Strangely, though, a couple of songs later, he tosses a pick into the crowd and is, like, outta here. The band do their best Status Quo band-of-brothers-with-guitars thing, and then it’s house lights and home time. What, no goddamn encore?
Given that they gave their all – it was a highly energetic, entertaining set – this suddenly left me feeling a bit nickel-and-dimed, that maybe we were being road tested here.
To say it was perfunctory would be reductive, but it was quite clear from both Aldean and Kent (sounds like a Memphis law firm!) that they really didn’t know what to expect when they got down here, in terms of reception, and even ticket sales.
Aldean was uncharacteristically self-deprecating about this – I dunno, maybe y’all got free tickets he drawled at the outset, and maybe he was a bit surprised by how big a following he has here.
So, change it up and give us a couple of songs to go home to, then. It was like a lukewarm coffee at the end of a fine meal. After a great night, I dragged my heels with the rest of ‘em, and left feeling just a tiny but underwhelmed.
But I’d sure as shit go see Jason Aldean again.
Michael Larsen
Photography by Leonie Moreland – Photos Corey Kent by Jennifer De Koning
Jason Aldean
