Saturday night in London may have been a whiteout with a storm kickin' around a pile of snow outside but inside Bud Gardens the place was on fire. Brantley Gilbert brought his Blackout tour to town and some of his buddies tagged along for the ride. Brian Davis, Michael Ray and Canaan Smith rounded out one rockin' night of Country music to the RBC Theatre at Bud Gardens.
This was round two for me having seen the show in Oshawa on Friday night and knowing how solid of an effort the boys put in on Friday night was excited to see the show again. If you are used to the cowboy boot, plaid wearin' and cowboy hat dawnin' country shows you came to the wrong place. This was an all out rock show.
The night kicked off with Singer / Songwriter Brian Davis performing a three song acoustic that Brian promised would only take him his beer to finish off and then his buddies would continue to rock our faces off. Brian might not yet be a household name yet but we know we will hear a lot more from this guy. Not many artists can pull off an arena performance with just an acoustic guitar in hand and a voice that is truly amazing. Job well done Brian.
Brian was followed by the fella that had his first #1 song in the US last year Kiss You In The Morning, Michael Ray. Unfortunately Michael doesn't get a lot of Radio play north of the border but thanks to Satellite radio (Sirius XM The Highway) and other online streaming services like Spotify there are opportunities for those die hard country music lovers to hear his stuff. Michael just killed it. His high energy, was infectious the crowd was in on this one right away. It was about half way through his set when he covered David Lee Murphy's Dust on The Bottle and that had the fans singing right along indeed. The last song of the set was his current single and my personal favourite Real Men Love Jesus.
Next up was Nashville via Williamsburg, Virginia native Canaan Smith. Now the audience was a bit more familiar with Canaan due to his time spent in Canada already with 2 stops at Boots & Hearts as well as an opening spot with Dan & Shay last April in Toronto. From the moment Canaan hit the stage he had the crowd excited and just cranked it. His 45 min set was filled with great songs such as Two Lane Road, American Muscle and his #1 song Love You Like That, which had the crowd singing right along. But it was an amazing cover of the smash hit by the Goo Goo Dolls , Iris that had me in awe. It was unreal, and defiantly one of the highlights of the night for me. Canaan is on the verge of headlining his own tour very soon we can just feel it.
Then it was time for country's bad boy... Brantley Gilbert. For those of you that haven't seen Brantley before all I can say is WOW. This guy puts on a pure rock show. With so much energy and passion Brantley is easily one of the top performers in the industry today. And BGNation was alive and well at Budweiser Gardens on Saturday night. His set was filled with hits like Kick It In The Sticks, My Baby's Guns and Roses and a killer cover of Colt Ford's Dirt Road Anthem in which he co-wrote and had the crowd singing right along.
There is a spot in Brantley's set that he slows it down and brings out the acoustic guitars and almost makes you feel as though you are sitting at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville in an intimate setting and you could hear a pin drop as Brantley told stories about the songs he was singing and was my personal favourite part of the show. It was during his encore that he sang Bottoms Up and brought a little helper up on stage to rock the finale and that they did. The little helper was just boppin' and loving the crowd I think even more than Brantley@ but you could see that BG was a bit nervous that his guest might fall off the stage and stayed close as they wrapped up the show.
This one gets a solid 9 out of 10 from me. With so many amazing performers on the Blackout Tour it was hard not to enjoy this show. HUGE thanks to Budweiser Gardens for having me and look forward to more shows at such a fantastic venue.
Corey Kelly / @CoreyKelly76
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Well if your reading this you must really be bored... So I was born and raised in a small town and have a thirst for good Canadian Whiskey and amazing Country Music.