Nashville has been guilty of pulling singers out of cowboy hats (thank you Chris Cummings), but sometimes, and it is increasingly rare, you get an actual full-tilt talent.
On Sunday night, Prince George was treated to one of country music's best examples of true professionalism still remaining in the beleaguered genre and because Brad Paisley is a class act who doesn't want to dilute the fans' experience, he brought along an up-and-coming Canadian who might just be another.
The night got off to a stellar start when Brett Kissel made his P.G. debut. Like his tour-mate Paisley, he is a note-picker not a chord-strummer on guitar, he is his own songwriter, he can actually sing, and he spews his good manners and natural optimism all over the fans.
Prince George gave the newcomer a big Kissel on the lips. The roars were huge and genuine for his string of hits like 3-2-1, Raise Your Glass, and Started With A Song. He also tried out a new one about how the hockey players got all the female attention in his high school years but learning how to play guitar won him some attention of his own. The fans loved it. He also whipped CN Centre into a frenzy with a raucous cover of Thank God I'm A Country Boy.
What it proved was Kissel is more than capable of handling his own headlining tour sometime soon, and P.G. will show up for him. It also exposed a key strength Kissel possesses: a willingness to write tunes - and they are good tunes - that are outside the three categories of current country hits - the one about the girl, the one about the party, and the one with the bumper-sticker chorus.
Kissel definitely fits his material under these headings to a degree (Started With A Song, Raise Your Glass and Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do in order). It fuels the career, these days. Paisley has more than his share of them, too.
But Kissel also writes about being a Canadian kid, hockey and so on. Paisley writes about alcohol personified, running moonshine, fishing, and so on. He relishes telling stories - some funny, some touching - and he excels at instrumentals. He also proves you can sell platinum records and win Grammy Awards with these idea-based songs.
Ok, fine, so Brad Paisley can bring the steak, but he also brings the sizzle. He destroyed CN Centre when he seized the stage. The crowd was essentially sold out, and they were in a mood to perform right back at him. The ovations were stellar. He could hardly say hello without the roar of thousands. Most concerts have reasonably engaged crowds, but Paisley's P.G. fans were in particularly fine spirits.
He didn't let any of them down. Well, I kinda wished he played Me Neither, my favourite song of his, but hey, the guy just has too many hits to work into one night, even if it's mega, so I'm not holding that against him. He gave me a searing version of Van Halen's Hot For Teacher, and I think Mr. Paisley might actually come back to P.G. one day, so we'll call that one even.
The rest of the night, the table was totally tilted in favour of the fans. The man is so comfortable in his own skin, and so dominant as a musician, that he could freely play around with the folks who came to see him. He wandered the perimeter of the floor playing guitar all the way from one stage to a second stage, so the fans at the back of the room could get some close-up time.
He played a little tune on an acoustic guitar he then signed and handed to a lucky kid in the front row. He gave away his hat later on. He slapped hands, got up-close-and-personal a lot, and even took random cell phones and shot selfies.
And if the man wasn't giving in the gladhand sense, he was giving in the musical sense. He had six other guys on stage with him - all of them power-talents on their instruments - but unlike the singer pulled out of cowboy hats, Paisley was the head chef in this kitchen. His bandmates were colleagues, not crutches. (The same can be said for Kissel.)
And their efforts were supported by the best special effects screen show I have ever seen. The animation, the videos, the vignettes, the fire and lights that leapt from the four giant screens and the one unbelievably giant screen were on some other chart for stage decoration.
He also gave the audience a lot of Canadian references to chew on, and because he came across as honest about it, not obligatory, the endearment only grew.
The Brett Kissel-Brad Paisley show was like eating a whole bucket of cotton candy, then finding out it was actually good for you. Those two guys are the ones who give country music flashes of hope for the future of musical storytelling on a bed of tight drums and finely plucked strings. The Nashville suits ought to take note: the crowd ate it up in a frenzy.
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