A hit parade from Rucker at rodeo
On his first radio tour as a country musician, Darius Rucker told the crowd at the AT&T Center on Monday night, San Antonio was his first stop.
A station manager here added Rucker’s debut single, “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” — which he pointed out when other radio stations weren’t so quick to embrace him.
“They’re playing it in Texas,” he’d say.
The problem wasn’t that Rucker was unknown. He was too well-known as the front man of the multiplatinum-selling rock band Hootie & the Blowfish.
Country fans came around, of course. In the ensuing decade, he’s performed at the San Antonio Rodeo a handful of times and scored eight No. 1 country hits. He played them all Monday, songs such as “Radio,” “Alright” and “It Won’t Be Like This for Long” that lean hard into domestic life, from childhood through marriage and parenthood.
Before they made it big, Hootie & the Blowfish entertained in college bars in the South, and Rucker still knows how to keep a party going.
Mixed in with his owns songs, he had the spirited audience joining in on “Friends in Low Places,” Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition” and the Blackstreet R&B hit “No Diggity.”
Dropping a Garth Brooks singalong into your set might be a risky move for some acts. Rucker, of course, could top it. He had a trio of aces up his sleeve, the Hootie & the Blowfish songs that soundtracked countless backyard barbecues in the mid-’90s.
“Let Her Cry” came first, in a stark arrangement for acoustic guitar and fiddle. Similarly countrified versions of “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be With You” followed, the latter kicked off with a banjo and slide guitar duet.
The energy stayed high through the end of the show, with Rucker rolling out “Come Back Song,” his big hit version of Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel” and — why not? — “Purple Rain.”
Rucker took the traditional farewell ride around the rodeo arena as guitarist Quinton Gibson unspooled the song-ending solo. Up the road is a big spring tour with Hootie & the Blowfish, but an arena full of rodeo fans are beaming in the rearview.