CLEARFIELD – A near capacity crowd of country boys and gals covered their shades of plaid with solids of rain ponchos and swapped their cowboy hats for umbrellas as Nashville recording artists Trace Adkins and Kellie Pickler performed at the grandstand stage Tuesday night at the Clearfield County Fair.
Before the show got under way, fans prepared for a rainy night. Many approached ushers seeking towels to wipe rain from their seats and placed them back on the wooden barrier for the next fan. Still, some were only shielded from the raindrops by their cowboy hats.
“It’s pouring down rain, and we’re still here to see our man – Trace Adkins. We’re such dedicated fans,” Gail Graham of Claysburg said. The rain would lift momentarily and long enough for fans to shed their ponchos and pack up umbrellas only to adorn them off and on throughout the show.
The pony-tailed Adkins had the grandstand rocking with hits, such as “Hill Billy Bone,” “Swing Batter Swing” and “Ladies Love Country Boys,” the latter is a song about the charm of men raised on farms.
Adkins would slow the pace with “You’re Going to Miss This” before openly admitting that he doesn’t sing love songs and delighting the audience with “This Ain’t No Love Song.” However, he would return to his rock-influenced beat with “Hot Mama,” a song for which his music video wasn’t particularly his mother’s favorite. “My daddy liked it though,” he joked.
Adkins said his mother did like the video for his next song, “Just Fishin,’” because her grandbaby was in it. After singing the song, he told the audience his fondest childhood memories were fishing with his daddy and both granddaddies, and they, too, should make those memories with their children.
But the comedic singer boasted that “Million Dollar View” was one of his wife’s favorite songs, and he scores “major points” when coming home with songs about her. “I say here honey this is for you, and she believes me,” he quipped, arousing laughter from the audience.
Adkins’ newest album, “Proud to be Here,” features live recordings, which he’s never released on previous albums. He then led into his own rendition of ACE’s “How Long Has This Been Going On,” and turned it into jam session, drawing fans toward the stage for photo ops.
“You’ll never find a better band than this. Now, all they need is a good singer. Maybe, they could get that kid who just won American Idol,” he joked once more.
After dedicating “One in a Million You” to a college girlfriend who never knew she was until recently, Adkins brought country fans out of their seats with his idea of heavier beat love songs with “Brown Chicken, Brown Cow” and “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” With the rain letting loose again, Adkins said he wasn’t the most ideal country artist for family-friendly events, as he closed out the evening with “Dirty White Boy.”
“I came prepared with a towel and an extra set of clothes to change into . . . I don’t think I have much of a voice left, and I want to see him again,” Graham said.
Before Adkins set to the stage, Pickler spoke of being raised by her grandparents in southern North Carolina. She grew up listening to “Hank, Conway, Dolly and Loretta” and fell in love with traditional country music. In fact, she said the first song she learned to sing was Hank Sr.’s “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It,” and she sung an excerpt from the song.
The former Sonic waitress and American Idol contestant wowed the crowd with “Don’t You Know How Much I Loved You,” “Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful” and “I Wonder” as a downpour let out on a sea of swaying fans.
“Thank you guys for hanging out with me. I’ll sing every song as fast as I can,” she said and later joked that she “picked the wrong night to wear a white T-shirt.” She said they were singing in the rain and could have a wet T-shirt contest. However, if she were to participate, they would have to pay more.
From her upcoming album, she shared the origin of the song “Rockaway,” a song about her and husband, Kyle. The couple went to Cracker Barrel on their first date, where they sat in rocking chairs and talked for hours. On her first birthday with Kyle, they returned to buy two, which now have their names on them. She followed with another new song that “better never be about her husband,” leading into “Stop Cheating on Me.”
Pickler belted out her newest single, “Tough,” which was inspired by overcoming her life’s early hardships and written specifically for her and her untitled, third album that hasn’t yet been released. She, too, sung “Best Days of Your Life,” a song co-written by her and friend Taylor Swift before concluding her performance with “Red High Heels,” her first gold single from her debut album “Small Town Girl.”
“I loved it,” Joanne Graham of Claysburg said. “It was my first ever concert and our mother-daughter outing. I was very lucky to have a front row seat.”
