The Bay Area is country country
Outside S.F., the big acts are filling up 20,000-seat venues
Live in San Francisco long enough and you might get the impression that country music has gone the way of the VCR. Aside from the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park every October, it’s rare to see any fiddles, boots or 10-gallon hats on a stage in a city where there are no radio stations dedicated to country music, only a handful of clubs that host Western nights and few touring acts.
But step outside San Francisco’s 49square-mile bubble, and the genre is booming.
Thanks to a recent spate of pop crossover hits by acts like Sam Hunt, Maren Morris, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney and Dierks Bentley and the support of a handful of outlying radio stations — 95.3 KRTY in San Jose, KAT Country 103 in Modesto and 92.5 the Bull in Sacramento — country music is connecting with audiences in Northern California in a big way.
“If you look for a genre-to-genre comparison, country music sells more tickets per show for us than any other genre — more than pop, hip-hop, alt-rock,” says Aaron Siuda, vice president of Live Nation Northern California, which brings a steady procession of country concerts to Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View.
This year’s lineup at the South Bay venue, part of the Country Megaticket series, is one of the strongest yet, with headliners Lady Antebellum and Brad Paisley having come through ahead of Bentley, Florida Georgia Line, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan and more.
Part of the reason those acts don’t play in San Francisco proper is practical; they’re playing in 20,000-seat venues across the country, and there are simply no venues in the city that can hold that many people (apart from AT&T Park, which has already hosted a show by Chesney). Most of the bills package three or four acts that would nor-
mally play midsize theaters, but together they draw more people and more dollars.
“The country touring model is one of packaging,” says Nate Deaton, general manager of KRTY. “It’s always been that way.” There’s also the social aspect. Jessica Lopez, who trekked from Fresno to the Paisley show in June, says that the concerts at Shoreline are as much about the hangout as they are about the music. “I go to meet up with my friends and party,” she says. “It’s always a little bit crazy.”
“The audiences for these shows come from all over,” says Siuda, noting that the venue has sold more than 180,000 tickets to country concerts this year. “They are active music fans. To them, coming to Shoreline is like going to the mall. They’re coming to throw their blankets down and have a party on a lawn. They’re coming to have a good time.”
See, while old-school music fans drew deep distinctions between labels and stuck with genre allegiances, more and more younger audiences are willing to embrace it all. Siuda says the same people who go see Luke Bryan one month will go see pop acts like Imagine Dragons, Kings of Leon or even rapper Future the next month — the product of growing up on shuffle mode.
“Young people don’t format things anymore,” says Deaton. “They play everything. And that really started with Taylor Swift. She brought a different audience to the format, and they realized they liked it. Now it’s on fire. The sound of country today is as much mainstream music as anything.”
In the past two decades, nearly half a dozen stations dedicated to country music have sprung up in San Francisco, but all eventually moved away from the format. Deaton thinks they didn’t work because instead of focusing on building a scene in the city, they tried to chase the suburban markets. “We already cover that area,” he says.
“It doesn’t seem surprising that country music is not as strong in an urban setting, especially one lacking a venue or nightclub specializing in that genre,” adds Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar magazine, which charts the concert tour business. “In general, artists try to maximize their sales by appearing in venues near where they think their audience resides.”
It’s not totally hopeless. Clubs like the Fillmore, Slim’s and Great American Music Hall regularly host some of the smaller, indie-leaning country touring acts like Sturgill Simpson, Whitey Morgan and Cody Jinks.
Earlier this year, the Grammy-winning sibling trio the Band Perry took a detour from its usual arena shows to try out some new material at Great American Music Hall, where it capped the night w with a medley of cover songs that touched on everything from the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” and Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback” to Kelis’ “Milkshake.”
“We do have more of these acts coming through,” says Tracey Buck, publicist for Slim’s and Great American Music Hall. “The fans probably appreciate coming to a club our size if the opportunity is there.”
And for artists like Bentley, who are used to playing to devoted fans across the rest of the country, the Bay Area holds a special place on his itinerary.
“When we play Northern California, I feel like the fans that come out are the ones who are really proud to be country fans,” Bentley says. “Those fans are louder. They’re making signs. The girls are up on shoulders. They go crazy. Many people might not consider it to be a country place, but I find the fans to be awesome. The ones who are there are the die-hards.”
“They are active music fans. To them, coming to Shoreline is like going to the mall. They’re coming to throw their blankets down and have a party on a lawn. They’re coming to have a good time.” Aaron Siuda, vice president of Live Nation Northern California