If you think an NBA double-overtime can make the Delta Center shake to its foundations, you can't even imagine what the triple-threat Sawyer Brown show did to the Richter scale!
Saturday night was country's night to howl, and David Ball, Toby Keith and the frenetic Sawyer Brown had the fans setting up an unbelievable din to match the shattering decibel level onstage.The KSOP/1-800-sponsored concert was a tightly run production from start to finish. At exactly 7:30 p.m., fog began to billow from the stage and David Ball was introduced to the crowd.
Handsome newcomer Ball proved to be a duck-your-head-and-just-sing kind of guy. He ran through seven songs during his set, six of them from his debut album, "Thinkin' Problem." His cover of "Singin' the Blues" was a rollicking honky-tonk delight. The rangy cowboy induced a hearty sprinkling of waving flames among the Delta Center crowd when he sang "When the Thought of You." He concluded with the title song from his album and left the stage after a rousing ovation.
A nimble crew swarmed the stage to change lights and props, and Toby Keith took to the stage amid a flash of laser lights. His "Boomtown" brought the screaming fans to their feet. The self-assured Keith wore black jeans, vest, hat and a white shirt and made it loud and clear that he rocks with the best of them.
For the rest of Keith's nine-song set, it was stand up and jive, sit down and enjoy a ballad. Keith seems to have taken a page from the Book of Sawyer Brown - during "Who's That Man," Keith slipped loose from his guitar and went for an audience one-on-one with portable mike in hand. From then on he had his fans jumping, singing and clapping madly. "A Little Less Talk (And a Lot More Action)" became a sing-along and careened recklessly through multiple final choruses that segued into yet one more round. The thoroughly energized crowd brought him back for an encore of Mellencamp's "I Fight Authority."
From 9 until 9:25 p.m. the stage was a hive of activity as Joe Smyth's elaborate drum set came out of its black cocoon and took a dominate spot on the stage. Two lighting technicians inched up rope ladders to helm a futuristic wedge of lights in flying V's, triangles and hexagons that rose and tilted in the direction of the high-flying lighting crew members.
Forget Carl Sandburg's "little cat feet" kind of fog - just before Sawyer Brown took to the stage in a blinding flash of white light dramatically silhouetting the band, the fog machine was set to Mount Vesuvius level, creating some kind of mad, multicolored incense roiling into the rafters.
From then on, it was hang on to your hats and pray for your eardrums! Lead singer Mark Miller and guitarist Duncan Cameron rocketed across the stage with frenetic energy. The lighting wasn't so much directed as it was deployed like a wondrous starship Enterprise deftly swooping and showering the stage and the Delta Center rafters with a kaleidoscope of colors.
"Trouble on the Mind," "Betty's Bein' Bad" and "Leona" caused one cowboy in a white shirt to the right of the stage to boogie like there was no tomorrow. Grandparents Glen and Fanny with three little cowboys in tow - Josh, 9; Jordan, 7; and Jackson, 3 - were dancing and clapping as if they were in Nashville, not Salt Lake City.
Highlights were "All These Years," with incredibly evocative lighting to match anguish of losing one's family, and "The Race Is On." Sawyer Brown grabs the audience and wrings it out like a wet dishcloth. Ending with "Some Girls Don't Like Boys Like Us," Miller laughed as he said, "But Salt Lake City girls do!" And don't forget to add Utah County girls Linda and Gloria!