A little bit country and a whole lot hot
REVIEW | Rimes, Chesney, Urban reflect country's hipper new vibe
To paraphrase one of the songs from Kenny Chesney's new album, "Poets and Pirates: Just Who I Am," things got a little crazy Saturday night at Soldier Field.
Country music powerhouses Chesney, Keith Urban and LeAnn Rimes, along with Luke Bryan and Gary Allan, sailed into town for the much-anticipated "Poets and Pirates Tour."
(Courtesy/AP)
In an evening where each act successfully topped the last, it was evident that today's male country star is a different breed altogether from years past. He no longer has to even attempt to fit the cowboy archetype or bask in a glow of patriotism, as was once the fashion. They don't even have to be, in Aussie Urban's case, American.
These guys prefer designer jeans to Wranglers, often look like underwear models and enjoy the type of devotion from female fans previously reserved for guys named Timberlake.
It makes sense, though. It would be hard for anyone to buy the tear-in-my-beer story from a dude who's swimming in cash and sharing a tour bus with Nicole Kidman.
So the mood is generally kept positive.
Many of Chesney's most popular anthem songs that he broke out Saturday, such as "Summertime," "No Shirt (No Shoes, No Problem)" and "Beer In Mexico," are celebrations of leisure, good times and flip-flops. In trying economic times and uncertainty in politics, it's natural and good that Chesney's (and Urban's for that matter) brand of escapism would keep fans on their feet for hours on a memorable Chicago evening.
When Chesney slowed the tempo a bit -- as those country stars are often wont to do -- the lyrics remain generally upbeat with carpe diem undertones, as with "Don't Blink," during which the crowd matched him passionately lyric-for-lyric.
Although Chesney wore a drenched Murphy's Bleachers T-shirt, thereby pledging his allegiance to the Cubs, for a moment he also managed to unite the North- and South-Siders in the crowd even as the city was in the midst of its own civil baseball war. During the chorus of "Back Where I Come From," Chesney was joined on stage by Nick Swisher of the White Sox and the Cubs' Jim Edmonds, as photos of iconic Chicago locales flashed on the big screen behind them.
Urban taught us during his too-brief set that in order to marry Nicole Kidman, you have to have the power to prompt a crowd of 50,000-plus to sing "Happy Birthday" to your pregnant wife the day after she turns 41. And there she was, Mrs. Keith Urban in the porcelain flesh -- hair pulled back, smiling just offstage.
From the opening notes of his smash hit "Days Go By" to his closing song "Love Somebody Like You," Urban had the crowd enthralled with his every syllable, every note and every strand of his highlighted hair.
If Chesney, Urban, Bryan and Allan are the pirates of the "Poets and Pirates Tour," its resident poet is Rimes. With Disney energy and a smile that supplanted the evening's setting sun, she showed with pro-gal songs like "Good Friend and a Glass of Wine" why women love LeAnn Rimes. And when she opted in the middle of her set for a costume change -- an oversize Nathan Vasher Bears jersey -- it was clear why men love LeAnn Rimes.
It was a shame that the stadium was barely a quarter full for charming newcomer Luke Bryan, country music's twangy answer to Jason Mraz. If he keeps churning out crowd favorites like "Country Man" and "All My Friends Say," we may someday see him headline his own stadium tour and leading the charge for the new generation of metro-country stars.