By Tom Coogan

A Luke Bryan Concert from the Perspective of Someone Who Does Not Listen to Country Music

When I first got out of the car and started to look around, I felt like I had passed out on the couch watching an episode of Duck Dynasty and proceeded to have a dream where I was in the show.

For those wondering why I was attending a Luke Bryan concert when I had not listened to or heard of any of his material, it was a way to return the favor of my lovely co-host Brittany whom I am dragging to a Father John Misty concert with me soon. So after a little bit of weeping over the outrageous ticket price I went to Luke Bryan’s Friday show at the Walnut Creek Amphitheatre with Dustin Lynch and Randy Houser opening.

By the time we got to the venue and found parking and our seats, Dustin Lynch’s set was already completed and Randy Houser was on stage. Now since I do not know anything about the big country acts there was no way that I would know anything about country opening acts so I was not phased by missing Lynch’s set. However, if it was anything like Randy Houser’s show then oh boy do I wish I saw Lynch’s show too.

Randy Houser was a decent singer and performer for his style but the visual effects that backed him on the jumbotron were some of the hackiest things I have ever seen, which made me so happy. The second I started to watch his performance the different scenes that consumed the stage all started showing a generic animation of fire that I guess was supposed to be badass. The icing on top though was that on the big screen right behind him had each letter on his name, written with a very basic font, separately on fire. I had no idea what to expect from the show but those flaming Times New Roman letters let me know exactly what I was in for.

Luckily for me, the shenanigans with the jumbotron were far from over. Houser decided to cover Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” and the screens showed stormy clouds along with the occasional ocean shining from moonlight. This was the only part of his show that I thought about storming out in protest. During the part of the song when he sings “This ain’t love, it’s clear to see” right when Houser sang the word ‘clear’ the clouds cleared away and the sun appeared. It was so unbelievably corny that it became both the best and worst part of the entire experience for me.

Frankly, I do not remember much else about Houser’s set besides a song called “My Kind of Country” that had just annoyingly standard ‘Yee-Haw! I love being an American!” type lyrics and sentiment along with a gif of the American flag roudly waving in the background. Other than that nothing truly notable happened for someone who was not familiar with him or his music to pick up on and since I am a novice in country music listening, it was hard for me to tell whether or not the song quality was good. I did not hate most of it which is a step up from most of the country songs I have listened to, so way to go Randy.

Up next was the big man himself. Perhaps one of the stranger moments of the night happened right as his show was starting. The lights were cut and the stage lights and platforms started to move into position with Muse’s “Supremacy” playing in the background. It felt more like a sports game than a concert and I guess Luke just thought it was a good intro song but it was very out of the blue and made me much more baffled than hyped.

Being completely honest it is hard for me to differentiate much of Luke’s set but there definitely were moments that stood out. None of the music was horrible by any stretch of the imagination but what brought down the experience for me was that the show had every single cliché crowd interaction. Any time a location was mentioned in one of the songs it would be changed to either Raleigh or Carolina, which was met with massive applause. There was a frequent reminder that we were both in Raleigh and that it was a Friday night, which again was met with applause each time.

My favorite part of the entire show matched the cheesiness of good ol’ Randy’s jumbotrons. Mr. Bryan has a song called “Roller Coaster” and there was a first person point-of-view video of a roller coaster and everyone in the crowd put their hands up and screamed as if they were on the roller coaster. There have only been a handful of times besides that in my life where I have bit my tongue harder to contain my laughter.

The final bit of crowd interaction that caught my attention was interesting just in how it compares to other concerts that I have been to. I normally attend rock, indie or hip-hop shows and it is normal for them to ask the crowd the same three questions. “Who here is drinking tonight? Who here is smoking tonight? Who here is fucking tonight?” and everyone cheers, as do I as if I were going to partake in those activities that night, but in actuality none of those ever end of happening for me. This concert had the same sort of questions but it was “Who here loves fishing? Who here loves hunting? Who here’s gonna make love tonight?” and everyone cheered and I did so again to fit in despite again not partaking in any of those activities that day. So even at a country concert I retain my record of 0 for 3.

There were some odd moments in the show like the covering of the choruses of The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and I was not able to tell if he was covering them in jest or if he actually liked the songs. I was happy that the show averted some of my lowest expectations that most likely were not most likely not justified in the first place, such as being worried that people would be sporting a lot of confederate insignias. So I was happy that there was no glorification of negative southern stereotypes.

Luke’s show, like Randy’s, had one moment that made me want to leave and that was the main set closer “Country Girls (Shake it for Me)”. The screen had an awful 18-wheeler tire flap silhouette girl dancing seductively accompanied to Luke telling girls to shake it for him. Although I was a fan of the lyric “Shake it for the birds, shake it for the bees” the whole song made me feel disgusting. It felt like he was catcalling every woman below the Mason-Dixon line and it made me want to take a bath in Sleater-Kinney albums to wash myself of the degradation.

Perhaps it was because I had someone with me who was enjoying the concert, but it was not the worst concert I have been to but it did not really make me want to purchase any of his music either. If I was by myself, or maybe at a festival I probably would have left but staying the whole time was not unbearable so I guess even a piece of hipster trash such as myself can get some form of enjoyment from a Luke Bryan concert.