Stadium shows don’t come much more authentic than the concert George Strait headlined Saturday at a packed Soldier Field. As balanced, forthright and unruffled as his name suggests, the iconic singer-guitarist harkened back to a simpler, purer era of country music without over-indulging in nostalgia. Free of pretense or frills, he played five decades’ worth of traditionally minded songs that seemed to have always been around — even if they were brand-new or a few years old.
Backed by his fantastic Ace in the Hole band, Strait sang of faith, faithfulness and freedom, as well as the interspaces that occasionally slip in between those constructs. The Texas native projected a mixture of steadiness, humility, class and confidence that on the surface appeared plain, but which jibed with the relatability, recognizability and directness of the narratives. Strait’s savvy blend of seriousness and humor, too, underscored the everyday commonality and deceptively simple nature of his craft.
Ditto his approach to the modern trappings of large-scale entertainment. Forget about wardrobe changes, dizzying illumination, choreographed routines, extended stage platforms or pre-rehearsed banter. Disregard any need for fan-indulging pandering, fashionable irony, backing-track aids or ego-inflating braggadocio. After all, those aren’t the ways of the old-school Texas dance hall.
With Strait, you essentially get the man himself. Dressed in a button-down shirt, Wrangler blue jeans, black cowboy hat and pair of cowboy boots. Using the same acoustic guitar for the duration. Communicating with a smooth, clean, rich, reserved, stable voice versed in the art of phrasing, concision and tonality. Assisted by a 11-piece group of grizzled veterans so familiar with one another within the arrangements that their seamless movements often evoked that of a scaled-down orchestra. In many regards, that’s what they and Strait became: an ensemble expertly attuned to the skills, styles and steps of big-band Western swing.
Few know it so intimately. For nearly 45 years, Strait has remained as dependable as the hot sun in July. The last time one of his studio albums failed to land in the Top 5 of the country chart was in 1982. He’s released 28 full-length LPs since and another effort, “Cowboys and Dreamers,” will hit this September. No wonder the King of Country owns the records for both the most Top 10 albums by a single performer and the most number-one songs on all charts of any artist in any genre.
The 72-year-old allegedly retired from heavy touring in 2014, yet his appeal never waned. Last month, Strait spearheaded the largest ticketed concert in U.S. history at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field in front of a crowd of 110,905. His website claims that he owns another 20-plus attendance records at venues across America, and the list of contemporaries and peers who paid tribute to him by either opening his shows or referencing him in their songs is legion.
Strait accomplished these feats while largely maintaining a private persona and failing to get the hipster stamp of approval. Even as he eases into elder-statesman status, he continues to operate without the cool-factor afforded several of his legendary predecessors (Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson) and countless younger performers orbiting amid the so-called alt-country, Americana and roots zones.
A probable reason for Strait’s lack of acceptance within taste-making circles relates to his apparent conservative lean. Though the singer refrained from political statements, he covered Merle Haggard’s “Are the Good Times Really Over” — a fretful tune that yearns for the structures and morals of a bygone past, and which contains a line that can easily be construed to imply women belong in the kitchen. In a dig at electric vehicles, following the song’s mention of Ford and Chevy, Strait interjected that they should run on gasoline. Perhaps he owns stock in oil companies.
The singer’s embrace of another topic that still be divisive, law enforcement, went down without potentially polarizing commentary. Strait gave heartfelt thanks to the people who work dangerous public-safety jobs and delivered the flinty “The Weight of the Badge” with notable fortitude. As Chicago Police and Fire Department logos, along with footage of local memorials to the fallen, flashed on projection screens, the singer threw his all into conveying the sacrifice required by those who serve.
That empathy extended to the Armed Forces. More than halfway through the 135-minute set, a retired general walked onstage to present to a combat-wounded soldier and his wife a symbolic key to a new mortgage-free home procured by Military Warriors Support Foundation. Strait, an Army veteran, has played a key support role in the charitable organization for years.
Bringing attention to a worthy charity felt as heartwarming as some of Strait’s delicate material. Yet plugging his brand of tequila, advertised throughout the venue on signs and screens, via a quick spoken introduction and the namesake ad-disguised-as-song “Codigo,” rang hollow. Strait also pushed sentimentality toward mawkish extremes on a few numbers, particularly the fragile “I Saw God Today” and trite “I’ll Always Remember You.”
Those stumbles aside, Strait never strayed from the basics — sturdy albeit swaying, disciplined yet loose — of the heel-scooting honky-tonk, juke-joint twang and mature balladry that make him a bigger outlier than ever before in a mainstream country scene currently geared to splashy pop, tasteless fusion and put-on imagery. His recurring grin belied the cleverness of many of the works, including the upbeat “The Fireman,” gliding “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” and tender “The Chair.”
Crooning over sweet violin melodies, Strait laid out the contours of sadness (“You Don’t Know What You’re Missing”) and romance (“To the Moon”). His hands-on ranching experience injected irreplaceable credibility to the hard realities documented in the rodeo-referencing fare of “I Can Still Make Cheyenne” and “Amarillo by Morning.” He also understood how to enjoy himself without going overboard.
Driven by the skedaddle of strings picked, rubbed and strummed, Strait and company offered a different kind of swagger than normally found up North. Pedal-steel notes spoke with a high-and-lonesome accent, bass lines whirled, rhythms clapped on the fours. Uplifting songs such as “How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls” and “Every Little Honky Tonk Bar” practically tapped strangers on the shoulder and demanded they grab a partner to dance. Never a bad idea on a gorgeous Saturday night.
In addition to joining Strait for three songs, opener Chris Stapleton turned in a stellar 90-minute set that stopped by way of Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; Louisville, Kentucky; Macon, Georgia and the Mississippi Delta. With a big, bushy beard, burly physique and eyes glaring out from under the brim of a creased cowboy hat, the award-winning singer-songwriter cut an imposing presence and struck up a formidable sound to match.
The 46-year-old Kentuckian concerned himself with matters of the heart, and various outlaw states of mind. Backed by an on-point septet, Stapleton arrived on a storm front of rolling thunder (“White Horse”) and departed amid peaceable skies (“Tennessee Whiskey”). He conveyed emotions as if he lived them all, whether in reality or in his head. His voice — molded by moonshine and miles, etched by red dirt, the sandpaper grit slightly smoothed by a pronounced Southern drawl — reached into deep-soul regions that spook the timid and cause hard-drinking barflies to reconsider their decisions.
As a bonus, the chemistry shared between Stapleton and his wife, background vocalist Morgane Stapleton, pumped extra oxygen into fare that already smoldered. Their visual and sonic magnetism elevated devotional declarations such as the R&B-stoked “Think I’m in Love with You” and hardscrabble “Fire Away.” Stapleton proved an equally sharper shooter when he and the band twisted the throttle.
Blowing through red lights, the backwoods rave-up “Arkansas” left a trail of barbecue, booze and trouble in its wake. The snarling “The Second One to Know” attempted to scratch and claw its way out of an undesired situation ‘til all that remained was blood and tears. As for tackling a portion of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” with utmost sincerity, and liberating it from the associations that long transformed the anthem into a tired and cliched punchline? Stapleton accomplished that, too.
Curtailed by bad weather at Wrigley Field in 2022, and forced to watch the clock as an opening act here, let’s hope he can stay a little longer next time he rambles through town.
George Strait set list at Soldier Field July 20:
“Deep in the Heart of Texas” (Don Swander and June Hershey cover)
“Stars on the Water” (Rodney Crowell cover)
“I Got a Car”
“Here for a Good Time”
“Check Yes or No”
“Run”
“How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls”
“I Can Still Make Cheyenne”
“The Fireman”
“Three Drinks Behind”
“Waymore’s Blues” (Waylon Jennings cover)
“The Weight of the Badge”
“The Little Things”
“Ocean Front Property”
“Are the Good Times Really Over (I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver)” (Merle Haggard cover)
“Pancho & Lefty” (Townes Van Zandt cover)
“You Don’t Know What You’re Missing”
“Honky Tonk Hall of Fame”
“I Saw God Today”
“The Chair”
“Every Little Honky Tonk Bar”
“MIA Down in MIA”
“To the Moon”
“I’ll Always Remember You”
“Give It Away”
“Amarillo by Morning” (Terry Stafford cover)
“Troubadour”
“Unwound”
Encore
“Codigo”
“All My Ex’s Live in Texas”
“Folsom Prison Blues” (Johnny Cash cover)
“The Cowboy Rides Away”
Chris Stapleton set list:
“White Horse”
“Nobody to Blame”
“Second One to Know”
“Millionaire”
“Up to No Good Livin’”
“What Am I Gonna Do”
“Think I’m in Love with You”
“Arkansas”
“Starting Over”
“Outlaw State of Mind”
“You Should Probably Leave”
“Parachute”
“Cold”
“Free Bird” (Lynyrd Skynyrd cover)→”The Devil Named Music”
“Traveller”
“Fire Away”
“Broken Halos”
“Tennessee Whiskey” (David Allan Coe cover)