Mark Chesnutt Concert Review

On Friday June 10, country music veteran Mark Chesnutt played at the Grizzly Rose in Denver.  Before I say anything about the actual music, though, I should mention that the Grizzly Rose is a wonderful venue.  It’s a country bar at the very best a country bar can be.   The space itself is huge and open with rustic wooden furniture and dim, smoky lights.  Best of all there is a dance floor, which saw constant use on the night I was there. 

            Local country singer Walker Williams opened for Mark Chesnutt playing a mix of covers and original songs, including his well known song, “I Can’t Get Arrested in this Town.”   It was good music to listen to, the sort that makes you tap your feet despite yourself and Williams and his band were enthusiastic and cheerful despite the fact that the crowd really wasn’t paying too much attention to them.  A few couples wandered onto the dance floor but for the most part people were talking and drinking together, waiting for Mark Chesnutt to play.  It was really a shame because Williams worked really hard and clearly enjoyed the space.  He paused between songs to give a shout-out to the bartender and pump up the crowd for Mark Chesnutt.  He took care to spotlight his band.  Both of his lead guitarists, Tim Buckman and Matt McClintock, did songs that had them in lead and Williams often stood back to give the drummer, Eric Garcia a bow.   It was a fun performance and Wallker Williams and his band were good sports, but it was a pity the crowd didn’t pay more attention.

            By the time Walker Williams had wound his performance down, a significant crowd did gather in front of the stage and it got denser during the space of time that it took Marck Chesnutt to walk on stage.  It was actually Delaney Jackson, the electric guitarist of Chesnutt’s backup band, The New South Band, who showed up on stage first. Jackson has a sparkly gold guitar and he’s a hilarious performer.  He spent most of the show flirting with a couple of women in standing in against the stage near him, never once missing a chord on the guitar.

            In contrast to Jackson, Chesnutt himself is a pretty low key performer. He doesn’t move around a whole lot, he doesn’t make faces and wave his guitar around. He doesn’t need to.  Chesnutt has a wonderful, velvety voice and a really confident stage presence.  He has a country rock style similar to that of Garth Brooks, which combines the heavily instrumental style of pop country with more old fashioned, almost twangy, vocals.  His songs mostly range from bittersweet love songs like, “Almost Goodbye” to the classic honky-tonk drinking songs like “It Sure is Monday” and he played some covers as well as songs from his new album, “Outlaw.”  Chesnutt’s love songs are beautiful.  They’re country ballads at their best, with steady, gentle rhythms and soaring vocal chorus.  However, it was the drinking songs that really got the crowd going.  Chesnutt would introduce a song, make an oblique reference to hot days and cold beer, and the crowd would holler rowdily and salute him with their beer bottles.

            Perhaps my favorite performance of the night goes to the man on steel guitar, Slim Yamaguchi.  His solo at the beginning of Chesnutt’s classic hit “Too Cold at Home,” has that wistful edge of classic country.   “Too Cold at Home” tricks you into thinking it's a drnking song, but it has an almost bitter nostalgia that makes it feel far more serious.  Though it should be said that, however solemn the song, the chorus inspired several rounds of beer bottle salutes.  Whatever the content, “Too Cold at Home” beautifully showcased Yamaguchi’s prowess on the steel guitar. Yamaguchi, like Chesnutt, manages to be incredibly charismatic without doing anything spectacularly crazy.  The feeling you get from watching Chesnutt and the New South Band is that these guys seriously know how to play.  They have the sort of stage presence that only comes from years and years of playing to sweaty crowds in smoky bars and even though there wasn’t smoke in the Grizzly Rose the night they played, the concert still had that feel.  It was good Friday night to put on your ten gallon hat and boots and go out for a some fantastic live music, some dancing and a beer.  Well, maybe two beers.

~Penelope Morgan

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