MUSIC

Concert review: Kane Brown brings explosive show to St. Augustine Amphitheatre

Tom Szaroleta
Florida Times-Union
Kane Brown returns to the St. Augustine Amphitheatre on Saturday.

You have to feel sorry for the crew assigned to sweep up the the St. Augustine Amphitheatre after Friday night's sold-out Kane Brown concert, where confetti cannons made it snow orange strips of paper. Brown plays at the same venue again on Saturday, so here's hoping they don't have to sweep it up twice.

Brown played a 90-minute set Friday that included big hits, laser beams, a little girl's dream dance and a couple hundred fireballs. Throw in some country stompers, a few hip hop rhythms and a romantic duet, and it was quite a show.

Brown came out strong on "Lose It," with honest-to-gosh laser beams drawing figures on the ceiling and easily 100 fireballs erupting to the beat around the edges of the stage.

The show had an unusual stage setup, with bass, drums and a guitar on one side, keyboards, another guitar and banjo/fiddle on the other and the middle left wide open for Brown to prowl. He's an energetic and infectious performer, working the crowd in a cut-off Steve Miller Band concert T-shirt.

Brown was clearly having a good time, firing a T-shirt gun into the crowd and plucking a young girl out of the standing pit of fans up front to dance on "One Thing Right."

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Brown has a knack for songs that aim straight for the heart, but he knows a party song or two as well. "Like I Love Country Music" is a real boot-scooter with lyrics that had quite a few couples in the crowd singing to each other, and "Bury Me in Georgia" mixed a stomping beat and fiddle solo to keep people from sitting down.

Brown never picked up a guitar or played a piano all night and, during three-song run through "I Used to Love You Sober," "Homesick" and "Heaven," showed that all he really needs is a piano accompaniment and a little fiddle to get pretty much everybody in the building to sing along.

He did quick a capella runs through "Be Your Man," "Redneck Woman" and "Friends in Low Places," in case anybody was doubting his country music bona fides (he's been nominated for just about every country award there is out there). If it still wasn't clear, "Short Skirt Weather" followed, country to the core, complete with rollicking piano, fiddle solos and summer-perfect lyrics.

The big moment came on "Thank God," when Brown brought out his wife, Katelyn, for a stare-in-each-other's-eyes duet that was captured by a sea of cellphones.

The show had a nice one-two punch of opening acts. LOCASH started with a set of singalong party songs, many of them aimed at the beer-drinking, truck-driving, flag-waving guys in the crowd. You couldn't ask for much more out of a 30-minute set before most of the crowd had found their seats.

Gabby Barrett followed with an hour that largely played to the female half of the crowd, drawing huge singalongs on "The Good Ones" and "Footprints on the Moon." She's got a big voice and had no problem singing to the last row of the packed amphitheater, and she has some good songs, but she needs more of them. Rounding out your set with covers of Keith Urban ("Somebody Like You"), Dolly Parton ("Jolene") and Journey ("Don't Stop Believin'"), crowd-pleasers though they may be, is only going to get you so far.

Brown's Saturday night show in St. Augustine is sold out. He plays Sunday at the Gulf Coast Jam in Pensacola.