Sunday, January 29, 2012

Concert Review: Turn it on, Turn it up, Turn me loose...

When one of "old" Country's legends comes to town, it is time to dust off the boots and hat and head to Billy Bob's. Fiona and I did just that when we found out Dwight Yoakam was going to be in Fort Worth as part of the Stock Show concert series.

Billy Bob's is a cavernous joint built in 1910 to house cattle (complete with sloped floors for easy cleaning) and later used as a dept store, an airplane manufacturing plant and lastly in 1981 converted to the self-styled "World's Largest Honky-Tonk". It spans over 127,000 square feet, has 20 bars and a capacity for over 6,000. Yes, everything is bigger in Tejas. It felt like 6,001 showed up to see old Dwight. He did not disappoint, belting out all the hits in a performance that lasted almost two hours.

The crowd, almost all attired appropriately in Wranglers, boots and belt-buckles the size of battle shields, lapped up every minute. My favorite moment was when he stopped in the middle of "Bakersfield" to change the lyrics from San Franciso to "Dallas" and then again corrected himself to add "Fort Worth". This elicited much hootin' and hollerin' from the crowd and to be honest I am shocked the 20 bars did not run out of beer, such a good time was had.

Good artist, great show, fun crowd, a rocking venue.

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