There may be some miles on me, Bentley was saying, but there's still fuel in the tank.
By Marc Hirsh
Dierks Bentley, with Kaitlin Butts and Chase Rice, at Xfinity Center, Mansfield, Aug. 9, 2024
“I got some rust on my Chevy but it’s ready to roll,” sang Dierks Bentley every time he hit the chorus of “Gold,” the song he took the Xfinity Center stage to on Friday night. And indeed, for someone who’s been storming the country charts for over 20 years, it was hard to argue with the sentiment, especially given the song’s chesty, ingratiatingly rousing drive setting the pace for the next hundred minutes. There may be some miles on me, Bentley was saying, but there’s still fuel in the tank.
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It was strange, then, that as soon as “Gold” ended, the new album that it came from — the one that Bentley was ostensibly there to promote — was never heard from again. Of the only five songs that even came from this decade, one was tucked in at the end of “Somewhere On A Beach,” and two were covers: One (Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season,” a hat tip to a local boy made good) was sung not by Bentley but by bassist Cassady Feasby, and the other was his recent take on Tom Petty’s ageless “American Girl.”
Still, if Bentley ran largely on memories, he appeared to be making it a smooth transition to legacy status. On paper, songs like the don’t-pin-me-down gallop “Lot Of Leavin’ Left To Do” and the horned-up and frisky “What Was I Thinkin'” (where he chronicles bad choices that he seems quite content to make again in the future) should have aged poorly as Bentley exits the demographic where being an irrepressible rascal might still be considered cute. But the singer never reveled so much in his rowdiness that he made it his personality. “Am I The Only One” could’ve been an obnoxiously impatient party-harder bray in different hands, but he made it an invitation instead.
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Part of that was his borderline-corny stage presence, reliant on admirably awkward scripted banter, and part of it was a voice that signified country not by the usual twang but by the way he sang just short of a grumble. But it was also in his avoidance of straight-up weepers. Bentley didn’t shy away from sad songs; he set up “I Hold On” by explaining that he started writing it the day his father died, and “Say You Do” was a lie-to-me plea to someone who had already moved on. But he sang the former as a life-affirming anthem, and the latter moved briskly even as it left enough space for heartbreak.
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He also snuck some of that into a few songs that were built around the notion of Bentley flipping the bird as he abandoned responsibility and decorum to embrace hedonism. Even with opener Chase Rice adding an assist in the spirit of fraternity, it wasn’t clear whether the narrator of “Gone” was chilling out or depressed; it might not have been self-pitying, but you could see it from there. In the burnt-out, defiant and deluded “Somewhere On A Beach,” Bentley sang, “I’m way too gone to have you on my mind” to a woman he was supposed to be convincing that he’d moved on. And his wild and sloppy movements suggested that the buzz of first encore “Drunk On A Plane” was temporary and that the crash that was coming would bring back whatever he was trying to escape in the first place.
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Bentley came dressed in a pilot’s cap, jacket and aviator glasses for that one, a hint for where things were about to go. Up until that point, the only real stagecraft came during the U2-esque pinging-guitar thrum of “Black,” when he sang behind a see-through video screen filled with small bubbles that floated and swirled out of his way wherever he moved. But as soon as “Drunk On A Plane” ended, the stage cleared as a Back To The Future parody starring Bentley and his band played to buy them time to transform into ’90s parody/tribute act Hot Country Knights, complete with glam wigs and era-bound instruments like keytar and headless bass.
The presentation was deeply silly, but the music cooked, as they tore through a medley of covers including “Achy Breaky Heart” and “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!,” passing the mic from one bandmember to another. It was a chaotically goofy end to a concert that had only ever maxed out at “corny” up until then, but once he sang Garth Brooks decked out in a blonde mullet, leopard-print vest and surf shades while throwing roses into the crowd, there was probably nowhere else for Bentley to go.
With a voice that remained tight even when she revved it up, Kaitlin Butts proved a solid opener, swinging between Loretta Lynn-style honky-tonk sass and the gothic rusticity of a lurching, world-ending “In The Pines.” Chase Rice followed, starting with the Mellencampy heartland rock of “Bad Day To Be A Cold Beer,” but beyond that and his dog hanging out on stage for a song or two, he took a good-natured, no-nonsense approach to songs like “Lonely If You Are” and covers of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.”
Setlist for Dierks Bentley at Xfinity Center, August 9, 2024:
- Gold
- Lot Of Leavin’ Left To Do
- I Hold On
- Am I The Only One
- Red Solo Cup (Toby Keith cover)
- Living
- Burning Man
- American Girl (Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers cover)
- Free And Easy (Down The Road I Go)
- Mountain Music (Alabama cover)
- Gone
- Say You Do
- Black
- Up On The Ridge
- Callin’ Baton Rouge (Garth Brooks cover)
- Stick Season (Noah Kahan cover)
- Freeborn Man (Jimmy Martin cover)
- 5-1-5-0
- Somewhere On A Beach
- Beers On Me
- What Was I Thinkin’
ENCORE 1
- Drunk On A Plane
ENCORE 2
- Hot Country Knights (Hot Country Knights cover)
- T-R-O-U-B-L-E (Travis Tritt cover)
- I Like It, I Love It (Tim McGraw cover)
- Meet In The Middle (Diamond Rio cover)
- Heads Carolina, Tails California (Jo Dee Messina cover)
- Achy Breaky Heart (Billy Ray Cyrus cover)
- Man! I Feel Like A Woman! (Shania Twain cover)
- Friends In Low Places (Garth Brooks cover)
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