Hours after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, chants of “U-S-A!” rang out Saturday night across a sold-out Ford Field as country star George Strait saluted law enforcement officers for their service — “especially after today.”
The 72-year-old Texan did not mention the Trump shooting by name, but it was clear exactly what he was referencing as he introduced a performance of his 2019 song “The Weight of the Badge.”
“This song we’re going to do especially for all you men and women out there who wear the badge, and say how much we appreciate you,” Strait said. “Thank you for coming when we need you, when we call you. We appreciate that very much, especially after today.”
News of the shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally broke Saturday evening as fans were still streaming into Ford Field for Strait’s first-ever concert at the Detroit stadium. Live updates about the situation had many in the country music crowd frequently checking cell phones and sharing news with seat neighbors throughout the night.
An audience of 47,065 packed the Lions’ den for the occasion, which came a decade after Strait’s last metro Detroit appearance, a Palace of Auburn Hills show booked as part of his ostensible farewell tour. He eventually returned to the road, albeit at a slower pace, and Saturday's Ford Field stop came as part of a 10-city 2024 itinerary that has already included a record-breaker: Last month's homecoming in a College Station, Texas, stadium drew nearly 111,000 attendees — a U.S. concert record for a ticketed event by a single headliner.
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Strait’s massive run of hits in the ’80s and ’90s helped him become one of country music’s first stadium megastars, and the amiable Texan was at home Saturday on his giant stage, where he manned a series of microphones up front in his standard uniform of jeans, black hat and crisply pressed shirt.
King George, as the country world long ago coronated him, is the sort of red-blooded visitor whose greetings of “Dee-troit” came without affectation, much like the smooth, no-nonsense vocals, fiddles and pedal steel that grounded his music. Strait’s rootsy, modern-cowboy style, which once served as a kind of stabilizing force while other mainstream country embraced pop trappings, is an all-American brew with ample servings of honky-tonk and Western swing, and Saturday’s two-hour-plus set landed with comfy-jeans familiarity.
With a handful of notable exceptions, the show devoted its focus to Strait’s 21st-century output, from the party starter of “Here for a Good Time” to the clever busted-love strains of “Give It Away,” along with a heaping helping of material headed for inclusion on his September album “Cowboys and Dreamers.”
The best of that new stuff included a cover of Waylon Jennings’ “Waymore’s Blues,” whose sinewy, snarling groove became a showcase for Strait’s longtime Ace in the Hole Band, a crack outfit that got to strut its stuff later in the show during a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”
But the old-school hits were there, too: Indeed, the very earliest of them — 1981’s “Unwound” — wrapped up the regular set with a spirited punch, while another from Strait’s emergent years, “The Cowboy Rides Away,” closed out the encore. The other must-haves were scattered through the show: “The Chair,” “The Fireman,” “All My Ex’s Live in Texas,” “Amarillo by Morning.”
Chris Stapleton, who had opened with a 1½-hour set of his own, stepped out to join Strait and company for three numbers, including two he cowrote: the 2013 album cut “You Don’t Know What You’re Missing” and the rollicking “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame,” set for Strait’s September record.
Stapleton’s own purist approach made him an ideal support artist for the evening. The Kentucky singer-songwriter is a dependable live treat, and his blues-charged guitar and soul-steeped vocals were on point Saturday in an opening set featuring Detroit-born steel-guitar wiz Paul Franklin.
The dark-tinted “White Horse” and “Nobody to Blame” kicked off a Stapleton performance that made its way through the back-alley R&B of “Think I’m in Love with You,” the rattlesnake-rock of “Arkansas” and a touch of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” before wrapping up with the obligatory sloshy singalong “Tennessee Whiskey.”
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
