Engines roared through the loudspeakers introducing one of Kenny Chesney’s recent hits, “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.” Fans roared approvingly, showing it wasn’t just farm machinery that held their attention.

Chesney opened for Dwight Yoakam at the Greeley Independence Stampede. His stage moves and song selection kept the audience wanting more. Chesney plays a mean “air drum” and “air guitar” and occasionally strums a real instrument. Most of the time though, he keeps his hands free. His constant stream of gestures, hip shakes and fist pumps kept the audience completely engaged throughout the almost hour-long set.

“She’s Got It All,” opened the show and then Chesney slid effortlessly into “Don’t That Make You Want To Fall In Love?” A surprise inclusion in the show was “Steamy Windows,” a song previously done to sweat-inducing perfection by John Anderson.

Chesney next introduced his current single, “Drive On,” and mentioned that he’d soon be releasing a greatest hits collection. “Drive On” was followed by what Chesney called “one of my favorite songs I’ve recorded,” “That’s Why I’m Here.” Chesney followed up with two songs by “guys I consider to be my heroes.” The two covers were Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight,” and George Jones’ “The Race is On.” The set closed out with “Me and You,” “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy,” and “How Forever Feels.”

Kenny Chesney went looking for love in all the right faces and found it. His up-tempo presentation, animated stage presence, and heartfelt singing left everyone feeling satisfied.

While Chesney presented a sly sensuality wrapped in a good-old-boy-next-door persona, Dwight Yoakam’s appearance on stage signaled the end of all innocence. Bad boy Yoakam oozed a steamy sexuality. Every move, real or anticipated, said “danger ahead” and caused women to melt, men to nod in admiration and parents to wish they could hide their daughters away for the next 20 years.

Although songs like “Guitars, Cadillacs” launched Yoakam’s career, he gradually warmed the audience up this evening with low key hits like “What Do You Know About Love” and “Turn it Up, Turn Me Loose.” Yoakam then kicked the night into high gear with “Guitars, Cadillacs,” and “Little Sister.” Yoakam’s intoxicating stage presence bears mentioning again. With the onset of the first chorus of “Guitars, Cadillacs,” his feet started shuffling across the stage, pelvis thrusting in time to the music. His moves were reminiscent of Elvis but were infused with a 90s flair by Yoakam’s personality.

Sixteen years and 13 albums in to the country music business, Yoakam treated fans at the Greeley Independence Stampede to a preview of his yet to be released 14th album, “Tomorrow’s Songs Today.” He promised not to overwhelm the crowd with the new material saying, “We’ll just throw in a spurt here and there. I’m not gonna unload this on you all at once.” With that, he introduced “Love Caught Up to Me.” The next piece of new material, “Sad Side of Town,” co-written by Yoakam and his friend Buck Owens, falls right into Yoakam’s legacy of intelligent and poetic lyrics. The “spurts” of new material came surrounded by Yoakam’s classics – “Little Ways,” “Ain’t that Lonely Yet” and “It Only Hurts When I Cry.”

The next “spurt” of new material revealed that this new album veers away from Yoakam’s rock ‘n’ roll days and back to honky-tonk and hillbilly music. In fact , Yoakam admitted to the crowd that the song, “Heartaches are Free” was indeed “pretty hillbilly.” On its heels followed another new, another hip swiveling, toe-tapping piece called “A Place to Cry.”

Two of the poignant moments of the evening came when Yoakam paid homage to his grandfather, a Kentucky miner, with “A Miner’s Prayer;” and then immediately dedicated “Traveler’s Lantern” to the memory of his grandmother. Homage to his country predecessors followed with Johnny Horton’s “North to Alaska” and Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”
Building to his finale, Yoakam let loose with “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere,” “Streets of Bakersfield” and “Honky-Tonk Man.”

Immediately after the lights dimmed to signal the end of the show, Yoakam reappeared on stage with only a stool and his guitar. The four song solo set included “Buenas Nochas From a Lonely Room (She Wore Red Dresses)” and “Long White Cadillac.”

Nearly two hours after the start of the show, the band rejoined Yoakam on stage. In an incredibly appropriate and fitting final song, Yoakam swiveled, shuffled and danced to “Suspicious Minds.”

Yoakam’s performance gave the listeners a sneak peak into the “new spurts” of music that he will release in the coming months. These songs will no doubt become etched into country music, another successful chapter in Yoakam’s distinguished music career. The talent displayed by Yoakam on stage gives many of country’s new young guns an incredible (and sexy) standard to live up to.

Mountain West Music 2002