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Friday, May 2, 2008
Review: Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Curtis Grimes at the Erwin Center
All the stories cropping up recently about how Willie Nelson bucked Nashville for Austin lead you to believe there’s a rift between the two country-music factories. Not so. At least not Thursday night for Nashville chart-topper Kenny Chesney’s high-octane show at the Frank Erwin Center. Of course, it helped that the fevered, camera-crazy audience was primed by two opening acts from Texas.
First up was Austin’s Curtis Grimes, a crooner with a rowdy streak who was the local winner of the Next Big Star competition, which awards small-time acts 15 minutes on the front end of each stop on Chesney’s Poets & Pirates tour. Next up was LeAnn Rimes, the songbird who calls Texas home even though she was born in Mississippi.
In much the same way you couldn’t wipe the smile off Grimes’ face, what with his family stage right and his buddies in the pit, there was no denying the glow of many a male in the crowd when Rimes, in a form-fitting short-skirt dress that left little to the imagination, appeared out of nowhere among the floor-seats patrons and allowed them to grasp at her at will while she belted out “Nothin’ Better to Do.” She peppered cuts from her latest album, “Family,” with oldies but goodies like “How Do I Live” and a cover of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me,” which was made all the more rousing by Rimes’ offer of a drink backstage after the show to one lucky person who texted “RIMES” to 66937.
Rimes might have Chesney to thank for her promotional coup. The stage set-up for the man who is so attached to cowboy hats you’d think he has a Kojak dome underneath was bathed in corporate advertising. Brand names radiated prominently atop amps comprising a mini Wall of Sound. The tour’s beer sponsor’s logo was interwoven into the spectacular multimedia presentation on the colossal monitor. Shoot, Chesney even displayed the steel-toe boots comped him by a local retailer after a recent foot injury threatened to cancel the show (he didn’t need ‘em, though, because, as one of the emcees said, he had him some “goooood pills”).
When Chesney and his 11-piece band weren’t high-fiving and hugging each other, they were galloping through back-catalog keepers like “Live Those Songs” and “Beer in Mexico” and numbers from his latest album, “Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates,” like “Wild Ride,” with its wicked Peter Frampton guitar effect, and “Shiftwork,” the steeldrum-infused singalong with the clever “Working 7 to 3, 3 to 11, 11 to 7” refrain.
Whatever trace of country was inherent in Chesney’s music was eclipsed by a full-throttle, stadium-rock vibe. But that sort of crossover is likely the reason for his mass appeal. Plus, the pearly whites he flashed for all the swooning Texas betties didn’t hurt.
(Kenny Chesney performs Thursday night at the Frank Erwin Center. Photo by Kelly West/AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF)
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In praise of myTunes
Not only is Rev. Louis Overstreet the subject of the greatest music video ever made, he’s in my iTunes fave 25.
One big way in which life has gotten better: the “My Top 25 Most Played” function on iTunes. Why couldn’t this have been around years ago when I’d come home from a night of partying, yet still wanted the musical merriment to carry on? Do you how many hours of my life I’ve wasted trying to find that perfect Elvis Costello song at three in the morning?
That’s what you do when you’ve had a few. You don’t play new, unfamiliar music; you play “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd over and over and over. I do wish iTunes would do away with the counter that tells you exactly the number of times played. It makes me ask myself what kind of grown man needs to hear “Over the Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole 31 times?
But I’m proud of “My Top 25 Most Played.” The song I’ve played the most in the year or so since I realized that iTunes doesn’t bite is “Wrapped Up and Tangled Up In Jesus” by Rev. Charlie Jackson of Memphis. The Rev’s “God’s Got It,” another solo electric blues-gospel stomper, is also in my top 10.
Number two on my list is “Unless It’s Kicks” by Okkervil River, a new kind of glamrocker with that great guitar riff. I’ve also been obsessed lately with Jerry Lee Lewis’ 1964 live version of “What I’d Say,” which somehow tops the Ray Charles original and should overtake Bruddah Iz on my list by tomorrow night. “Okie Dokie Stomp” by Gatemouth Brown is currently #5, followed by “Gold Soundz” from Pavement, “Falta tu Amor” by Steve Jordan, “I Summon You” by Spoon, “Who Knew” from my girl Pink and “Postal Blowfish” by Guided By Voices. I didn’t realize how cool I am until iTunes gave me my own private Billboard chart.
Online dating is a big thing these days, now that everyone’s at their computer every night and not learning to two-step at Midnight Rodeo. The best way to see if someone’s compatable is to check out their “My Top 25 Most Played” list. It’s so simple, yet can be an effective gauge. Anyone’s who’s got “Fernando” by ABBA or “To Sir With Love”in their top 5 is my kind of gal. But if 7 of her top 10 most played are tracks from Bob Schneider’s “Lonelyland,” well, we’ve just saved ourselves a lot of time.
