The thing that makes Dwight Yoakam both popular and important as a country singer is the same thing that makes him annoying: his aloofness.
In industry circles, that bratty quality makes Yoakam his own man. He refuses to be packaged by the marketers and moguls who run the Nashville machine. He is the last of the defiant holdouts; a rebel with a cause. He disdains being "handled."In concert, however, that aloof quality comes out as a general disregard for the people who show up to hear him. Several years ago, when his career was still budding, Yoakam played Spanish Fork. Listeners waited for two full hours in a pouring rain for him. When he finally emerged, there was no apology, no explanation. He sang and got out. Afterward, he retreated to a trailer and canceled interviews and other plans his promotional people had scheduled.
Over the years, that attitude has become a pattern. Tuesday night, for instance, Yoakam forced anxious fans to cheer, clap and call for almost 45 minutes before he'd take the stage.
But once there, Dwight the devil took over, much to the delight of a full crowd at the Huntsman Center.
There's no easy explanation for Yoakam's slow rise to the crest of country music. Part of it has to do with his image as an Elvis in a cowboy hat. Part of it is his wonderful material. And part of it is Yoakam's sense of "hip," a quality few other country performers have.
Remember, Yoakam comes out of Bakersfield. And though the big Bakersfield influences will always be Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, Bakersfield is also in California, and California knows trends.
And Yoakam's sense of cool was on full display Tuesday. Wearing skin-tight leather pants and a blue denim jacket, he looked - and acted - like an incarnation of James Dean. Behind him a broken montage of screens flashed pictures to accompany each song. On several tunes from his new album, "This Time," the screens showed a giant painting of the back of a vampy woman with one of Salvador Dali's melting clocks draped over her shoulder (Sorry, you just can't get there from Branson). And Yoakam's dance moves had the slink and spin of slow-motion disco.
Welcome to country music, California style.
Early in the show Yoakam got rid of the "covers" he's done over the years: "Little Sister," "Always Late," "Streets of Bakersfield." He also included a full helping of original numbers ("The Heart That You Own," "Guitars, Cadillacs"). But the real target for the night were the songs from his hot-selling album, "This Time." It was, after all, the "This Time" tour. And the major cuts were all present: "Inside the Pocket of a Clown," "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere," "This Time," "Ain't That Lonely Yet," "Fast as You."
Needless to say, much of the new material - like Yoakam - feels more like a country hybrid than the pure thing. The songs sound more like plaintive ballads from some Ozark troubadour.
Switching guitars several times during the evening, Yoakam played things pretty much straight up and straight ahead. He chatted for a moment at the beginning, then dove into the program, moving from song to song in a kind of seamless stream of melody.
This was the second tour for the "This Time" album, and this one had a new feel, a new direction about it. Dwight Yoakam, once the bar rat who got in fights at night after performing in working class pubs, is now showing up on "Saturday Night Live," the Grammy show and appearing in movies with Nicholas Gage.
And Tuesday's concert offered just a hint of where he may be going next: full circle. From a rock 'n' roll brat influenced by Elvis and Carl Perkins, through country music and back to rock 'n' roll brat again.
Opening for Yoakam was Union Station, a tight and bright bluegrass band featuring musicians from Vermont to Maine. They were good, but no one was quite sure what they were doing there. Are we in the middle of bluegrass revival, and word just hasn't gotten this far West yet?