Versatile McGraw entertains with hits
Easy-rocking and buff country star keeps the ladies squealing
Tim McGraw With: Trevor Panzak, Beverly Mahood When: Tuesday night Where: Rexall Place
The classic K-Days ride for kids is the carousel.
Decorated plastic ponies on poles, bobbing up and down while the ride moves in a circle to pleasant music. A perennial hit for the under’ 10s, starter horses for young cowboys and cowgirls, a way to keep them corralled and occupied for a period while they work off a sugar buzz from too much soda.
By coincidence, the adult equivalent of the carousel was happening right next door to Northlands as Tim McGraw and his band drew in a respectable 10,000 attendees for their Tuesday night show at Rexall Place.
There were no plastic ponies, it’s true — McGraw has plenty of the real ones to ride back in Tennessee — but there were quite a number of folks buzzed on beer and shots.
Kicking off mid-tempo style with One of Those Nights from 2013’s Two Lanes of Freedom, McGraw brought the night in easy-rocking style, though the girls were on their feet and squealing for his bad-boy manifesto, Real Good Man.
From there on it was a selection of songs taken from 20 years of hits encompassing more Nashville trends than any man should have to pay attention to.
McGraw has always paid attention to the changing landscape of country music, however, which means he can switch on a dime from autotuned vocal intros (Southern Girls), to nostalgia (Back When) to bro country (Truck Yeah). A ragingly ambitious man with decent vocals and excellent entertaining skills, McGraw even enters into boy band music with one of his newest tunes, Keep on Truckin’ — you kept waiting for the rap interlude.
He was ripped, the country equivalent of Henry Rollins, looking as though there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. His clothes were immaculately rock ’n’ roll. There was some question among people in the row as to who he had hired to rip the knees out of the jeans he was wearing.
Backing him up were the Dancehall Doctors, or maybe they weren’t; it’s actually hard to tell who was with the original band and who was cleared out in the purge a few years back. Whoever they were they put on a performance equal to the band that was here last time McGraw was in town, adding just enough fire to the more generic tunes to get them over, and powering songs like Mexicoma to another level.
Opener Trevor Panzak is a big and genial man with a warm, deep voice and a band that can knock off the sound of ’70s country rock with ease. The resident of Lethbridge appears to be testing the pop country waters, however, with songs from his soon to be released album.
Veteran Beverley Mahood was closer to country rock, delivering a slick, powerful set that made up for in energy what it lacked in originality.