Dierks Bentley Free and Easy Copperhead Road

Dierks Bentley had just led his bandmates in a suitably reckless rendition of "5-1-5-0" when the Phoenix native took a moment to reflect on what it means to him to find himself onstage — again — at Country Thunder Arizona.

"I don't want to talk too much," he said. "I know you've been drinkin' a little bit, and if I start talking I might not stop because we're here in my home state and I'm so thrilled to be here. I'm trying to run this just like a regular show but it's not a regular show. We're in Arizona down here.

"My mom's over there, watching me, judging me. You guys are here. It's only every couple years I get a chance to come out here and play Country Thunder. I love this festival. I've got a lot of friends that are camping out, that are here tonight."

'This is a weekend for living'

After giving a shoutout to those friends, he told the crowd, "This is one of those weekends that I know you guys look forward to it all year long. You've got friends out there at the campsites with you. You're going down the slip and slide together. I might go out to the slip and slide. But a lot of times in your life, you're just trying to get by. You're just trying to survive, but you're waiting for those moments when you can actually not just be alive but do some living. And this is a weekend for living, am I right?"

There's a difference, he said, between being alive and living, telling the fans, "We're gonna use this weekend right here to recharge our batteries for the whole year, man."

Country Thunder 2019:The highs and lows of the Florence music festival

And to be honest, Bentley's batteries did not appear to need much of a recharge. He recently finished a headlining tour in support of "The Mountain," which became his fourth consecutive release to top theBillboardcountry charts.

And after two weeks off and a stop at the ACM Awards a few days earlier to sing with Brandi Carlisle and pick up his latest award, he seemed both fully rested and reenergized.

He opened his headlining set with the single that won that ACM Award, Vocal Event of the Year, with Brothers Osborne joining him on "Burning Man" immediately their own amazing Country Thunder set.

And that was just the first of four songs Bentley shared from his latest release. He also played the title track, "Woman, Amen" and "Living," the song he set up with that speech about living.

The rest of the set was an entertaining mix of longtime Bentley concert staples, including such crowd-pleasing highlights as "What Was I Thinkin'," "Sideways" and the encore-closing "Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)," and highlights of his four most recent albums.

There's a more reflective tone to much of Bentley's recent work, from "Home" and "I Hold On" to "Burning Man" and "Living."

The show's Springsteen-esque story arc

By the time he made it to "The Mountain," not long after "Living" and "Riser," there was a practically Springsteen-esque narrative arc emerging in tale after tale of surviving and facing your challenges, rising every time life knocks you down and truly living.

As Bentley sang, "It was only a mountain, nothing but a big ol' rock / Only a mountain, it ain't hard if you don't stop."

At the same time, there's a part of Bentley's older, wiser heart that's still invested in  "What Was I Thinkin'" and "Sideways" and "Drunk on a Plane," in many ways his loopiest (and most successful) single, which, it should be noted, did share album space with "Riser" and "I Hold On" not that long ago.

Nine albums into his journey, the man is still shotgunning beers while demanding to know, "Am I the only one who wants to wants to have fun tonight?"

Then? Austin Burke proposed to his girlfriend

It's on that song that Bentley tends to bring a fan onstage to shotgun a beer with him. This time, he brought out Austin Burke, a Phoenix native who, like Bentley, is trying to make a go of it in Nashville and had played his own set earlier that day.

He then invited Burke to stick around and sing on "Come a Little Closer," during which the young singer got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend.

As Bentley remarked, with a laugh, after sending the couple on their way with a joke about where they were headed, "I'm glad she said yes."

So was Burke, it would seem.

He held "Drunk on a Plane" for the encore, staggering around the stage in a pilot's hat and shades after screening a silly commercial for something called Dude Air that looked like it had dropped in from the '70s.

It's a great song and a perfect opportunity to give that side of Bentley's personality the wheel. It's fun. And if the crowd reaction to that song is any indication, he is not, in fact, the only one who wants to fun tonight. That mountain will still be there in the morning.

Dierks Bentley Country Thunder setlist

•  "Burning Man"
• "Up on the Ridge"
• "Somewhere on a Beach"
• "Woman, Amen"
• "Black"
• "I Hold On"
• "5-1-5-0"
• "Living"
• "Riser"
• "Different for Girls"
• "The Mountain"
• "Am I the Only One"
• "Come a Little Closer"
• "Say You Do"
• "What Was I Thinkin'"
• "Sideways"

Encore

• "Drunk On a Plane"
• "Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)"

Brothers Osborne rock the house

Brothers Osborne came out rocking with reckless abandon on a song called "Drank Like Hank," effectively blurring the line between country and rock in a song that found lead singer T.J. Osborne snarling, "Yeah, we partied like a possum and we drank like Hank" with twice the swagger it would take to sell that line.

By the time he squeezed out a series of life-affirming high notes while his solo on the second song, "Shoot Me Straight," to a crowd-pleasing, jaw-dropping climax, T.J.'s brother John had established himself a truly heroic guitar hero.

And they were just as good when they retreated from the raucous nature of those first two songs and tried their hands at something more subdued a heartfelt rendition of "I Don't Remember Me (Before You)" and a soulful majesty of "Weed, Whiskey and Willie," completely with a wonderfully wounded lead vocal from T.J.

After reaching back to their first album, "Pawn Shop," for "Down Home" and "Rum," T.J. asked "You guys want to hear some old country music for a little bit?" then said, "I hope you said 'yes,' because you're gonna get it either way."

And with that, they proceeded to stretch out all over a cover of Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River" that worked its way through sounding like the Allman Brothers at their jazziest to John tearing it up on a tremolo-strumming climax.

T.J. urged the fans to "just grab the person next to you and sway from side to side" on "Tequila Again," a hungover ballad that featured Joe on mandolin. And from there, they brought their set to a rousing conclusion with Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road," an epic "Stay a Little Longer" and an even more expansive treatment of "It Ain't My Fault," a headbanging hybrid of country, garage-rock and soul-punk with a keyboard solo that bordered on prog. By that point, it clear that there is nothing these guys couldn't work into the mix.

Lonestar play the hits, including 'Rapper's Delight'

Dean Sams stormed the Country Thunder stage and shouted "C'mon y'all! Here we go" before joining his Lonestar bandmates in a flawless re-creation of the harmonies to the chorus of "What About Now," one of the nine chart-topping hits that helped define them as a major force in country.

Three songs into their performance, Sams said "We are now celebrating 27 years together," quickly adding, "I was four when this band started." Then, he thanked the crowd for the hits they were about to squeeze into a four-song medley, including the chart-toppers "Smile" and "Tell Her."

After making their way through several of their biggest hits, from "My Front Porch Looking In" to "Mr. Mom" and "I'm Already There," one of several songs that emphasized Richie McDonald's formidable voice, they dusted off their first chart-topping single, "No News," performed as a medley with the Beatles' "Get Back."

Then, Sams told the crowd that Brothers Osborne and Dierks Bentley would be playing after them -- "But before we get to that, we're gonna do this big, nine-week No. 1 record."

That record, of course, was "Amazed," which they followed with a medley of crowd-pleasing covers, "Another Brick In The Wall Part 2," "Rapper's Delight," "Come Sail Away" and "Life In The Fast Lane."

High Valley mix humor and bluegrass

High Valley played the festival two years ago. And much to Brad Rempel's dismay, his brother Curtis didn't couldn't make that gig because as Brad recalled on stage this year, "He chose his wife over me that weekend."

To which Curtis responded, "We were having a baby, for crying out loud. I couldn't miss it."

That's true, Brad admitted, adding, "They had a child that very same weekend. And they name their child, beautiful, beautiful girl, eight pounds, three ounces, they named her Country Thunder Arizona, which was so sweet."

It's a good act, the playful rapport between the brothers. Not that it would matter if the music wasn't just as likely to go over with a Country Thunder audience, from the banjo-rocking charms of "County Line" to the bluegrass-flavored folk of "I Be U Be."

They also covered John Michael Montgomery's "Be My Baby Tonight" and Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochie." And after sharing the story of how growing up in a little Mennonite town, they had no radio or TV but "sure had a heck of a lot of bluegrass music," they turned in a crowd-pleasing medley of "I Saw the Light," "I'll Fly Away" and a bluegrass reinvention of Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance."

Austin Burke's big day at Country Thunder

Austin Burke had one hell of a day at Country Thunder. Hours before being brought out on stage by Dierks Bentley to sing a little bit before proposing to his future wife, the Valley native made his first appearance on the festival's mainstage. And he seemed right at home as we worked the early crowd with the self-assurance it takes to win a later slot. He even ended the set by running through the crowd, slapping hands.

Highlights of his set ranged from originals as ripe for country airplay as "Slower" and "Sleepin' Around" to a medley of the songs he said had shaped him. These included songs by Garth Brooks, NSYNC, Eminem and Coldplay. As Burke put it, "This is the time that we live in." Before the set was through, he'd covered Tim McGraw and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Then he signed off with the best of his originals, "Whole Lot in Love," of which he said, "I really wrote it because I didn't know how to tell my girlfriend that I loved her." It sounds like he's figured it out.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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Source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/music/country-thunder/2019/04/10/country-thunder-arizona-2019-dierks-bentley-saturday/3428472002/

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