2-for-1 country concert rocks
Two new faces in Canadian country rock set the bar unbelievably high when they launched an eight-concert Western Canada tour at Prospera Place on Friday night.
“I played some hockey on this very ice surface,” Kelowna-bornand-raised Chad Brownlee shouted to a roar from the 2,200 fans who packed a half-concert-bowl setup.
“This is the city that built me,” he added, echoing comments made during an interview earlier in the week.
After a raucous opening with When the Lights Go Down, Hood of My Car and Something We Shouldn’t Do, the former NHL draft pick for the Vancouver Canucks paused for a moment to drink it all in. He’s come a long way since graduating from Rutland Senior Secondary in 2002. Somethin’ We Shouldn’t Do, his current single, is his third consecutive Top 10 hit.
He followed that up with Listen, accompanied by a touching story about a couple sitting down to sign divorce papers when his song came on the radio. They later told everyone: “That song saved our marriage,” said Brownlee. “They are still married. That is the power of music.”
A series of romantic ballads followed including Fallin Over You, Just Because, the theme song from his fourth album and current tour, Hearts on Fire, and his next single, Might As Well Be Me. He urged everyone to use their cellphones to record and share it with friends since ‘This is THE song.” And then, “Put your phones down.” That didn’t stop occasional, rhythmic cellphone light-waving by the crowd.
To further encourage even more audience participation in his lyrics, he brought co-headliner Tim Hicks back on stage and used an age-old stage convention: divide the audience in half, Team Brownlee versus Team Hicks, and see which half could sing “Hey now, hey now” the loudest. Then, in unison, for Smoke in the Rain.
Tall, lean and ruggedly handsome, Brownlee completed his 13-song set with Love Me or Leave Me, but returned for a one song encore, I Hate You For It, his favourite song on the new album. Hicks followed up-and-coming opener, Jojo Mason, with the highlights: his tour theme song, Shake These Walls, which debuted as the No. 1 selling Canadian Country Album, and Stompin’ Ground, his highest charting hit which topped the digital singles chart for one week as the best-selling Canadian country song.
His closer was the YouTube/Facebook sensation and beer commercial song, Stronger Beer. The backdrop was a Canadian flag with the red maple leaf replaced by the silhouette of a beer bottle with a flexed bicep sticking out from the side. Of course, everyone sang along, laughing at the humorous differences between Canadians and Americans.
Mason was performing in his first arena show and made an indelible impression with his first single, Good Kinda Love. He followed that up with rousing versions of Red Dress, Chicken Fried and It’s All Good.
One of the most fascinating aspects was the crowd — not your usual cowboy hat and boots, plaid shirt and Levis set. It was a much younger audience for country rock which is more rock than country. They were well behaved in spite of free-flowing beer in the stands, and lyrics exulting beer, whiskey and “hellbent until the day I die (Hicks).”
Both Brownlee and Hicks pulled out all the usual stops: light show, steam jets, guitar solos, and throwing everything from giant beach balls to picks, camouflage hats and drumsticks into the front rows.
From Kelowna, they head to Vancouver (two shows), Fort McMurray, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, knowing their much-anticipated kickoff in Kelowna went without a hitch and with a wildly-enthusiastic reception.