This past week Connecticut’s Country 92.5 hosted an all-acoustic show, Unwrapped & Unplugged, at the Cadillac Ranch in Southington. The show featured Jackie Lee, Austin Webb and Dustin Lynch, who as many pointed out, happen to be three of the best looking guys in country music right now.
The chairs were set up in the large back room, usually left open for line dancing. Fans got there long before the show for some awesome food and drink specials. Many hung out or shot pool while waiting for it to be close to show time and heading over to their seats.
Jackie Lee, who is part of the Broken Bow Records line up with artists such as Jason Aldean and Lynch, opened the show. He got the already enthusiastic crowd even more into the show. I loved his cover of Sam Smith’s ‘Stay With Me.’ He was a lot of fun, sending a Snapchat to his friends where he had the crowd stay quiet as he talked into the camera as if he was alone before turning the camera to a screaming crowd with hundreds of fans. This was my first time seeing Lee but I hope it won’t be the last. His debut single ‘She Does’ is out now, check it out!
Austin Webb was up next after a quick break. Webb also put on a fun set with lots of crowd involvement. He brought some people from the crowd up on stage with him who were celebrating birthdays, as well as later bringing Collin, a young fan, up on stage with him. Those who didn’t make it on the stage weren’t left out though, as Webb hopped off the stage singing and dancing in the middle of a group of fans by the stage at one point. My favorite songs from the set were ‘Slip On By’ and ‘Don’t Gimme No Lip.’ During the latter, Webb mixed in Tom Petty’s ‘You Don’t Know How It Feels’ which was awesome! Webb closed out his set with ‘All Country On You’ which will hit radio after the first of the year as his next single. The song was really good and will be a huge hit for Webb. You heard it here first!
Dustin Lynch came out next to a tremendous applause. It actually took a minute to get started because the crowd would not quiet down, in a good way. The acoustic nature of the entire show was really cool, in addition to being more intimate and showing off the talent of all three artists; it also allowed for the artists to be more conversational with the audience. If you’ve read any of my past reviews you know that I really enjoy getting behind the scenes facts from artists so this was really in my wheelhouse.
After interacting with the audience a bit, including getting a jersey from a fan’s softball team which was named ‘Crank My Tractor,’ he kicked off his portion of the night with ‘Name On It.’ He explained that he wrote the song about a Justin Moore concert he had gone to. This song like ‘Hell Of A Night,’ which he did later, were recorded as more rocking songs but on both Dustin, along with the two musicians he had on stage with him, did an awesome job of making it an acoustic. I should add here that just because the show was acoustic does not mean by any stretch it was low energy. The crowd and artists were up and active all night long. The performance of ‘She Cranks My Tractor’ really exemplified this.
This was Lynch’s second time doing a show at the Cadillac Ranch which he called the ‘Ponderosa of the North.’ The night before the show Lynch had hosted the red carpet at the ACC Awards and was clearly still pumped about meeting Reba the night before. He dedicated ‘Halo’ to her saying it’s a song about ‘an angel who likes to get wild.’ One part of the night that caught me off guard was Dustin talking about how he’s shy off stage and how that was part of his decision to record ‘Mind Reader’ which is a song about girls making the first move. Seeing him interact so cooly with fans after this show, and previous ones, this surprised me.
After a version of ‘She Wants a Cowboy’ which I made sure to use cap locks when writing that is was ‘AWESOME‘ in my notes, he played the acoustic version of ‘Hell Of A Night’ I talked about above, discussing how excited he was that NASCAR chose to use it in their commercials. Up next was an unexpected, but incredibly well done, upbeat cover of Drake’s ‘Hold On’ which he required the audience to dance to. After covering a rapper, he went back to some good ole country music playing a cover of Garth Brooks’ ‘Rodeo’ which had the entire place singing along.
This wasn’t his only Garth cover for the night. After a few other originals including ‘Cowboys and Angels’ he came back to the legend playing ‘Friends In Low Places,’ explaining he needed to play a song where he got to drink while the audience sings. He mixed in parts of ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ and ‘Keep Your Hands To Yourself’ before talking about going on tour next year with Randy Houser and Luke Bryan. He then played some of Luke’s ‘All My Friends Say’ during which he brought Connecticut country artist Tat Holler on stage to test out his dance moves. He and the band then brought it back into ‘Friends in Low Places’ for the crowd to sing the third verse.
The concert portion night was rounded out with ‘Where It’s At’ but the night was far from over. Webb and Lee came back out on stage and all three artists spent a long time taking selfies with the crowd and signing autographs. This was definitely a great way to round of the concert year for me. It was probably one of the last chances to see Dustin in such a small, intimate, venue. You can tell after listening to him talk for just a few minutes that he is very down-to-earth but his career is getting so big he’s going to have too many people wanting to see him to be able to play shows like this.
Be sure to check back here at NECM to see when these very talented artists will be back in the area. Also you can follow Jackie, Austin and Dustin on Twitter.
Photos credit: Anthony Manciero (WWYZ-FM)