Concert review
There are only a few artists in country music who could get away with calling their tour “Standing Room Only,” knowing that each night they’re sure to play to a packed house even when they visit NHL and NBA arenas.
Tim McGraw, who made good on that promise as fans were crammed up to the rafters Friday night at Climate Pledge Arena, is certainly one of those stars. A reliable hit-maker on his own — and with his wife, Faith Hill, since the 1990s — McGraw showed that he’s still a vital performer four decades into his career.
Dressed in appropriately tight jeans and a black henley shirt, McGraw, 56, looked almost eerily ageless. Thankfully his voice has remained just as youthful.
Country music shows tend to be arena rock shows in disguise and McGraw’s opening, “Truck Yeah,” didn’t do much to dispel that notion. The high-octane start worked, though, and the crowd immediately leapt to their feet and stayed there all night long.
The rocking start was sustained with “Southern Voice” before things took a decidedly more country turn with “All I Want Is A Life,” off McGraw’s 1996 platinum album “All I Want.” That one might have been a deep cut for the surprising number of young folks in the crowd, but the strong contingent of millennials and boomers roared their approval.
McGraw was there to please, and he sent the crowd into a frenzy with his spot-on rendition of “Tiny Dancer” by Elton John. It’s an easy song to butcher but McGraw proved just how well his voice has been preserved by nailing every note.
Many fans might have traded in the Nelly cover “Over and Over” for another classic (such as the sadly missing “Don’t Take the Girl”) but there were still plenty of chances for McGraw to walk down memory lane, like with his 2002 hit “Watch the Wind Blow By.”
His new music turned out to be just as crowd pleasing. New single “One Bad Habit” had a driving kinetic energy that signaled McGraw hasn’t lost his ear for country’s poppier side. Power ballad “Standing Room Only,” the title track from his 2023 album, proved that it deserved to be the tour’s namesake.
The show moved along briskly, efficiently even, without ever really feeling rushed. Before you knew it, McGraw had dazzled with old hit “Red Ragtop,” the iconic “I Like It, I Love It” and wrapped things up with “Real Good Man.”
If that had been it, most fans would have probably gone home just happy. After all, how often is it that you get to see a legend of the game still healthy and happy 30 years after his first hit album debuted?
But McGraw wanted to keep the party going and came back out with “The Cowboy In Me,” from 2001’s “Set This Circus Down.”
It was clear McGraw wanted to leave the crowd with some positivity and he accomplished that with “Humble and Kind,” his 2016 song by Lori McKenna, and “Live Like You Were Dying,” his megahit from 2004.
After the show, in the elevator up to the street an older woman realized that she had a little too much to drink. As she clutched onto her daughter, she smiled.
“But it was worth it for Tim McGraw,” she said. “That was the best show of all time.”
Owen R. Smith
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