Wallen dazzles 12,000 fans with pyro, biggest hits

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This article was published 28/09/2023 (1100 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some banks were too big to fail in 2008 and there are some artists who are too big to cancel 15 years later.

Among those is Morgan Wallen, who performed before an adoring sold-out Canada Life Centre Thursday night, more than 12,000 fans who have forgiven and forgotten about the time TMZ caught him on a hot-mike uttering a racial slur in 2021.

They sang along and cheered loudly for Wallen as he stepped on a glittery stage wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and an orange baseball cap and sang one of his first hits, the 2018 banger Up Down, which began and ended with blasts of pyro shifted his musical pickup truck into high gear.

It was quite the opener.

Wallen apologized for his words shortly after the 2021 incident and donated money to Black causes. He also managed to win a staring contest with the glaring eye of cancel culture. In its aftermath, his songs shot to the top of the charts despite radio and video TV boycotting them for a while.

His two most recent albums, 2021’s Dangerous: The Double Album and 2023’s One Thing at a Time, managed the rare feat of reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s all-genre album chart as well as its country chart, which Wallen has dominated for most of the past two years.

The big winners of the whole event are Wallen’s fans, including those Thursday in Winnipeg, who sang along to every Wallen tune.

That includes the 2023 ballad ‘98 Braves, an ode to his favourite baseball team that struck out in the playoffs like the way he whiffed at love in the song, or Cover Me Up, the Jason Isbell cover that was part of Dangerous.

Wallen’s crew refused to allow the Free Press — or any other media organization on this tour — to photograph the first few songs of the concert, unlike most artists who play Canada Life Centre, and it’s a shame. The concert was a special-effects dazzler.

In front of the regular concert setup was a hexagonal stage with two diamond-shaped cutouts for videographers and stagehands that, when lit up in red, from above resembled Deadpool’s mask.

Alas, it is Wallen’s logo: an M on top of a W, which were seen on his pricy merch — $60 for a T-shirt, $110 for a hoodie — in the concourse before and after the show.

The stage floor was used as a screen for projections, which gave those in the relatively cheap seats a rare advantage over those in the mosh pit who got to pose for selfies with Wallen.

Wallen, who last played Winnipeg as an opener for Luke Combs in 2019, gave his openers, Ernest and Bailey Zimmerman, a turn in the bright lights during his set.

Wallen’s last song before the inevitable encore was The Way I Talk, which is a celebration of the southern accent.

The fans sang along too, even if you have to head south to get a reaction to how Manitobans talk.

It finished with fiery torches and more fireworks and chaotic lights, proving once again this was a rock show with only a veneer of country’s “three chords and the truth.”

Wallen donned a Jets jersey for the encore, Dustin Byfuglien’s sorely missed No. 33, for Heartless, his duet with EDM giant Diplo.

Last Night followed, which Wallen proudly said was the biggest song in North America, to the crowd’s approval.

Whiskey Glasses was the night’s finale, and the crowd gyrated to one last booze track for the road.

Ernest, who is Ernest Smith off the stage, is a Nashville native who’s co-written tunes for many in country music, including Wallen’s More Than My Hometown. While he doesn’t have Wallen’s stage presence and hunky looks, Ernest has songwriting skills that work on stage too, including on Sons of a Sinner, a co-write with Jelly Roll, an old high school buddy who took the song to No. 1 in early 2023.

Another Ernest highlight during his half-hour was Somebody’s Problem, which Ernest sang solo with an acoustic guitar, a rare moment of traditional country in an evening dominated by power chords. His finale was the hit ballad Flower Shops, which turned into a singalong with the sellout crowd.

Zimmerman, 23, who opened the evening, ditched a meat-packing job in southern Illinois and took up singing in 2020. He built a following on TikTok, which has led to the minor hit Never Comin’ Home and a debut album, Religiously, which came out earlier this year.

He wore distressed jeans and a T-shirt with Andy Warhol’s photo of Marilyn Monroe on it, and wound up his 30 minutes of arena-rock by preaching about God and believing in yourself.

Whether Zimmerman achieves more than 15 minutes of fame will depend on his fans, whom he posed for selfies with from the edge of the stage Throughout his set.

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall