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July
14, 2005
Live
Review: Tim McGraw in Edmonton
Fan-demonium over country superstar
By STEVE TILLEY - Edmonton Sun
EDMONTON
- Here's how you judge the crossover appeal of a country star:
Scan the stands at Commonwealth Stadium and figure out the percentage
of cowboy hats versus non-hats.
Tim
McGraw fans, according to this very unscientific sampling, are
20% hat-wearers. Which means a full 80% of the God-lovin', family-lovin',
USA-lovin', Faith (Hill)-lovin' country gentleman's fans don't
even have a Stetson they'd don to see him in concert.
But
that's OK, because they show their love in so many other ways.
Like, with lots and lots of screaming. Most of it female, oddly.
Or not.
Taking
the stage in white and sky-blue two-toned T-shirt and (can you
believe it?) his signature cowboy hat and blue jeans, the country
gentleman who can do no wrong, well, did no wrong, leading off
with his current radio hit, Do You Want Fries With That.
It's
as perfect a country-pop song as you can get.
A
stolen wife, kids and pets, reduced to a slave wage job - it
doesn't get any more country, but the chorus is so hooky that
you'd have to be dead not to clap, dance, stomp, drink or fight
along to it. Yes, you can fight to music. Ask any cowboy. Not
that anybody was, but still.
(While
we're on the subject of T-shirts, the best one of the night:
A tall, dark-haired and large-lunged beauty wearing a turquoise
T emblazoned with the outline of Alberta and the slogan, "It's
not just the roses that are wild." Really? Elaborate on
that, please. Please?)
Backed
by his familiar and kick-ass band, the Dancehall Doctors, McGraw
then slid into How Bad Do You Want It? (answer from crowd: Quite
bad, actually, if by "it" you mean "Tim McGraw")
and then Illegal, playing air guitar in jeans tight enough to
get a man arrested.
Things
mellowed out a tiny bit with Where the Green Grass Grows, with
McGraw being one of those few stars who can get the audience
to not only sing an entire verse, but sing it well. Good job
y'all.
"Thank
you Canada, it's good to see you," McGraw told the crowd,
genuinely meaning it even if he didn't, you know, get too geographically
specific.
"If
you know one thing about our shows, you know we don't bullshit,
we just play music," he said, wrapping up a brief bit of
chatter. "And we're just getting started."
No
lie, that. It was too bad that just a couple songs later, as
McGraw had the crowd on their feet clapping and singing and
arm-waving along to Down On the Farm (sample lyric: "If
it starts rainin', we'll just head to the barn"), serendipity
responded by opening the heavens. But if anything it seemed
to fuel the audience's zest -- the umbrellas came out, the spirits
went up, and soaked couples two-stepped on the stadium's track.
And I swear, at one point, McGraw was triggering lightning on
command.
A
smart Edmonton crowd knows better than to waste a mild summer
night being fashionably late, so the stands at Commonwealth
were surprisingly packed earlier in the night when able opener
Gord Bamford took the stage. Bamford was followed by George
Canyon, who, with a voice as deep as his name (and a crowd-pleasing
rendition of the Man In Black's Ring of Fire), is the perfect
lead-in to a guy like McGraw.
But
it was clear who the people were there to see, and his name
was Tim. Sadly, a ruthlessly early deadline kept us from sticking
around long enough to see if Faith Hill (or maybe even Nelly)
was waiting in the wings for a duet, one of those times when
leaving a concert before the encore seems cruelly unfair.
But
you can bet that later last night, after everyone was snug and
sound and dry back home, many a cowboy benefited from his cowgirl's
deep, deep appreciation for Tim McGraw. 'Cause it ain't just
the roses that are wild.
SUN
RATING: 4.5 out of 5
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