Lady Antebellum, Rucker a breezy ride at Harley bash
The concert lineup during the Harley-Davidson 115th didn’t have the kind of horsepower we’ve seen at past anniversary celebrations, when the Milwaukee motorcycle company booked shows with the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith.
But Summerfest officials still offered a big show during the Harley bash Saturday, with a Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker doubleheader at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater.
The star power was especially strong at the end, when Rucker and Lady A joined forces for a three-song, 20-minute encore.
Rucker strolled on stage alone with an acoustic guitar, singing the familiar opening lines of “Hold My Hand” from his Hootie & the Blowfish days, soon followed by Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood on backing vocals, and the two headliners’ backing bands joining forces.
The song segued into a sweet, Scott-led cover of Deana Carter’s “Strawberry Wine,” on which Scott shared vocals with the night’s opener — Nashville up-and-comer Russell Dickerson — and even let him have the money note at the end.
Then Dickerson (sporting a Randall Cobb Packers jersey) stuck around to sing with Rucker and Lady A for the latter’s “Love Don’t Live Here” at the edge of an extended stage, while members of the backing bands tried to show off to their counterparts.
For all the busyness, Rucker still managed to slip in a wisecrack — “This should be my song; I sing this so much better than him” — while gesturing to Kelley.
The electrifying encore alone was worth the price of admission, and if the two acts tour together again, they should consider a completely intermingled set, similar to what Sting and Peter Gabriel did at Summerfest a couple of years back. The drawback was that it made Lady A’s 65-minute set bland by comparison.
Not that the country trio isn’t talented. So are their five backing musicians (including former Milwaukeean Samuel Dennis Edwards on bass), who showed off their impressive skills during the “meet the musicians” portion of “Downtown.”
But for all their abilities, Lady A and company played it safe with by the book country-pop and soft-rock arrangements.
That approach worked fine for, say, a tender “Heart Break,” the Scott-fronted title track off Lady A’s 2017 album, which began and closed with snippets of Dua Lipa’s “New Rules” Saturday.
But the lack of daring deflated some songs, especially a tepid take on the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tony Women,” whose only memorable quality was Kelley singing out in the audience near the end.
Where Lady A continues to excel is with male-female vocal interplay, with Kelley and Scott trading fizzy verses during upbeat “Heart Break” funk jam “You Look Good.” And “Need You Now” is just as stirring nearly a decade after its career-changing arrival, the performance climaxing Saturday with the band putting their instruments aside — aside from Haywood’s acoustic guitar — as the crowd sang along.
Rucker and his six-piece backing band had more room to roam during a superior 65-minute set.
They brought a back-porch-jam feel to the front of the stage for closer “Wagon Wheel,” Rucker’s take on an Old Crow Medicine Show song originally started by Bob Dylan in the early ‘70s.
The count your blessings anthem “Alright” began with a barbershop-style a cappella intro from the band. And a couple more Hootie songs got the country treatment — Rucker sang most of “Let Her Cry” on acoustic guitar, accompanied only by Garry Murray’s sweet fiddle, while the memorable guitar riffs from “Only Wanna Be With You” were played by Alexander “Sasha” Ostrovsky on acoustic lap steel guitar.
Wisconsin has a special place in Dickerson’s heart, and not just because he’s a fan of Spotted Cow, which got a shout-out during his half-hour set Saturday.
“Milwaukee, you brought me the most beautiful woman in the world,” he told the crowd, speaking of his wife, Kailey, from Cedarburg, who takes his publicity pictures, directs his music videos and was the inspiration for his breakthrough hit “Yours.”
“Without this city, without the woman of my dreams. … I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be here,” Dickerson said.
That may be true, but with captivating stage presence, a strong voice and catchy country-pop tunes, Dickerson proved he deserved to be there Saturday.
While “Yours” was fittingly wideeyed and earnest, the rest of Dickerson’s set was mostly playful, especially during “MGNO (an acronym for “My Girl’s Night Out”), which worked in Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” and Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” before Dickerson busted out his version of the goofy, viral Backpack Kid dance.