Review: Brad Paisley on a wet night in Camden
"I'm sorry about the weather, gee whiz," Brad Paisley said, three songs into his two-hour set at the Susquehanna Bank Center Friday night. The popular singer-songwriter and virtuoso guitarist was headlining his H2O II: Wetter & Wilder tour, an ambitious package that started around 4 p.m. The relentless rain had forced Sunny Sweeney, Edens Edge and the JaneDear Girls off the "Water World" second stage and over to the protected main stage.
"I'm sorry about the weather, gee whiz," Brad Paisley said, three songs into his two-hour set at the Susquehanna Bank Center Friday night. The popular singer-songwriter and virtuoso guitarist was headlining his H2O II: Wetter & Wilder tour, an ambitious package that started around 4 p.m. The relentless rain had forced Sunny Sweeney, Edens Edge and the JaneDear Girls off the "Water World" second stage and over to the protected main stage.
"It is, I promise, the last tour I'm gonna name 'H2O' anything," concluded the amiable West Virginian.
And then Paisley - the reigning, indisputably deserving Country Music Association Awards-winning Entertainer of the Year - offered "Working On a Tan," off his latest album, as some consolation "for all you Philadelphia beach bums."
His twangy Telecaster blazed along to a Ventures-esque surf beat as vintage beach-movie clips rolled across the video screens, just more proof of Paisley's exceptional showmanship. His tasty guitar licks and facility with songcraft make anything work, whether it's the populist cyber-country of his "Online" or "Welcome to the Future" or the suitably traditional genre-saluting title track of this year's This is Country Music, his ninth studio album.
Just preceding the boyish Paisley, 38 (and following Jerrod Niemann), was the reigning CMA vocalist of the year, Blake Shelton. Another justified title-holder, the tall, lean and likable Shelton projects an unassailably authentic C&W persona through his manly song stylings, whether he's covering Conway Twitty or crooning Canadian smoothie Michael Bublé's "Home." And he is adored, with the wet women-folk in Camden enthusiastically singing along to his rollicking "Hillbilly Bone" and his recent country chart-topping single "Honey Bee."
Shelton has gone particularly high-profile this year, as a vocal-team coach on television's The Voice; his marriage in May to the critically acclaimed country star Miranda Lambert; and with the July release of Red River Blue (his sixth album, which debuted at No. 1 on the overall Billboard 200 chart). Announcing him as "Mr. Miranda Lambert," a teasing Paisley later brought Shelton back onstage during his set to do their duet "Don't Drink the Water" off Paisley's latest album. Clearly, it was a night when aquatic imagery could not be avoided.