A new, lean and mean Dolly Parton and a revitalized Kenny Rogers played the Salt Palace on Wednesday night. High-tech, uptempo, the concert was the kind of show Rogers and Parton fans always expect.
And this time they got it.Rogers, especially, has suffered the past two years from bad press. His stage shows had begun to grow more stale than the air of a Las Vegas lounge.
But Wednesday, decked out in a Union soldier coat and fresh attitude, he seemed to have caught the spirit of things, and maybe caught his second wind in his career.
Working in the round had to help, especially with the house lights partway up to offer a little more intimacy. So did the fact the singer reprised several hits he hadn't done for 10 years. (When was the last time you heard "Something's Burning"?)
The big difference, however, was likely Rogers' being billed with Parton. If you don't act warm and enthusiastic around Parton, you run the risk of coming across like an old poop.
Rogers was anything but. Whether pulling old songs out of his hat ("Ruby," "Love Will Turn You Around," "Daytime Friends and Night-time Lovers") or throwing out new arrangements of "Bo Diddly" and his current hit "Crazy in Love," Rogers was agile and alive - those old "football knees" of his having miraculously healed or unburdened of about 30 pounds.
Parton was her old professional, unaffected self; telling bittersweet stories of life in the Smoky Mountains and sharing her feelings about everything from The National Enquirer to life north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Dressed like a rhinestone cowgirl in white pants suit and heels a foot tall ("It takes a lot of money to make me look this cheap"), Parton opened in duet with Rogers on "T for Texas," then soon took center stage (if such a thing is possible in the round) to do an autobiographical set of her own songs. "Coat of Many Colors," "Jolene," "Nine to Five," "Why'd You Come in Here Looking Like That?" and "Here You Come Again" soon followed.
Rogers, his beard and his classic white suit joined Parton for an a capella gospel quartet number (Rogers singing bass). Then the singer proceeded to offer the glitz, glimmer and off-the-cuff humor that's made him rich and famous.
As in past shows, Rogers stopped the band several times to chat up and chide the audience, but this time around even the old lines he'd used in past stage shows had a new kick to them.
The special effects were few but interesting. On a Skip Ewing number "If I Were a Painting," laser beams painted a portrait of Rogers on the side wall while lights colored the singer a hundred colors. Green fog and "tracer bullets" of light also had cameo roles in the show.
Parton then returned in a black, sequin gown for "Islands in the Stream," "Love is Strange" and a duet for an encore, a version of her hit "I Will Always Love You."
A short and sweet finale to a relatively short but sweet show.
In the end, you probably shouldn't go away feeling you missed Pavarotti and Maria Callas or that the humor was up there with Burns and Allen.
In fact, the whole thing was more like the slogan Garrison Keillor once suggested for the Arkansas license plates: "So much better than you expected."
One hopes the twosome holds together long enough to make another Salt lake appearance. Having watched Rogers tug at his belt loops to hit the high notes when singing with Dotty West because she sang above his range, and having watched him stumble about by himself for several years, I'm glad he found Dolly.
And he may have found her just in time.