Nichols Worth Every Dime
Rarely is there a time when a star of the Joe Nichols’ magnitude plays a place the size of Cowboy’s Arlington. But such was the case last Friday night, and as expected, the house was packed. Nichols came right out of the shoot with Brokenheartsville and continued from there.
Nichols continued playing hit songs, including Size Matters and Cool To Be A Fool. He also included a song on his most recent CD that has not been released to radio, I’ll Wait For You. My guess is that this will be the next radio release. It’s not much of a concert song though, and the audience seemed a bit disinterested. He followed that up with a dedication to the late Buck Owens. However, he could have at least sang something we had heard of. I’m not sure what Buck Owens song that was. But props to Nichols for mentioning the little known fact that Buck is from Sherman, Texas.
The show picked up a little bit when Nichols broke into some cover songs. His version of Whiskey River sounded almost as much like Willie Nelson than Willie himself. A little Hank Jr and David Allan Coe followed. David Allan Coe music in a Texas honky tonk bar is always a good thing, and a sure bet to get the crowd back into the show. Once Nichols had his audience back, he kept it the rest of the night. He followed with The Impossible and What’s A Guy Gotta Do. The Impossible is really a powerful song and sometimes gets forgotten about when talking about Joe Nichols tunes, but it may be his best to date.
Bras and panties filled the stage when Nichols performed Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off. This song is good enough as it is, but what a great live song. I was hoping to hear a couple of cover songs that Nichols has on his new III CD, Should I Go Home Or Should I Go Crazy (Gene Watson) and My Old Friend The Blues (Steve Earle), but he didn’t do them. That was my only disappointment of the night.
I found the show entertaining and I felt Nichols was smooth on stage. However, a colleague felt the show sucked and that he couldn’t keep his audience. For the most part I have to disagree, even though, he did lose it a little bit in the middle of the show when he steered off from his own music. But overall, I felt it was money well spent, and will definitely go see him again.
