FLORENCE -- At least 30,000 people turned up Sunday night to see Luke Bryan close out the 2018 Country Thunder Music Festival here -- a record crowd that stretched from the Main Stage to a point past the middle of the sprawling festival grounds.
Bryan, making his fourth Country Thunder appearance since his debut as an opening act in 2008, brought in nearly 3,000 more people to festival than Jason Aldean, who headlined on Friday night. Attendance numbers will be finalized later this week, festival officials said, but they said the 2018 four-day country music event will likely record its biggest single-day and overall attendance records.
Other headliners included Cole Swindell on opening night last Thursday and Toby Keith on Saturday.
Bryan had the biggest challenge of the four: Keeping the crowd, many of whom had been at the festival since Thursday, energized and engaged at the end of four long days that likely involved the over-consumption of adult beverages, lack of sleep and dodging blazing sunshine that inched the thermometer past 90 degrees all four days.
From the moment he took the stage -- a few minutes past his 9 p.m. start time after the on-site security detail from Pinal County Sheriff's Office placed several deputies into the crowd near the catwalk -- Bryan had the audience along for the ride. They cheered and sang along and when Bryan strutted down the catwalk, they shoved cowboy hats and ball caps in his direction hoping that he would stop and sign them. It worked for a few of those fans, who got their prized autographs.
But it was Bryan's deep catalog of hits beginning with his homage to life in the country “Hunting’, Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day” that gave the audience its second wind that carried them through nearly two hours of hits that criss-crossed from neo-traditional country to swooning ballads and songs that tip-toed over that line of hip-hop and country often referred to as hick-hop. Among Sunday's setlist:
"Someone Else Calling You Baby," "Do," "Crash the Party," "Play It Again," "Drunk On You," "What Makes You Country" and the off-the-hook rocker "Country Girl (Shake It For Me)."
Most of Bryan's show was seeped in party songs, high-energy romps that kept the audience on its feet and security on its toes. When he turned to a small group of female fans squealing every time he came close to them, the noise level from those fans surely exceeded some archaic law on Florence's books. But Mayor Tara Walter was in the audience with her three kids and, judging by her reaction, there won't be any formal complaint.
Opener Brett Young delivered a show that was the calm to Bryan's storm. He told wonderful stories including one about his parents and another about a songwriter friend. He wrote songs based on both stories -- "Sleep Without You" and "Beautiful Believer" -- and performed them in his terrific nasal-inflected voice that was full of depth and sincerity, Songs included the heart-tugging "Like I Loved You."
Aldean on Friday made limited use of the e Bryan to use the catwalk as a Jason Aldean on Friday performed his biggest outdoor concert since
the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 when a gunman fired onto the crowd during Aldean's show. Aldean fled the stage and escaped injury. Fifty-eight people were killed and more than 500 were injured in what authorities said was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Aldean earlier Friday visited Jovanna Calzadillas, an Arizona woman among those injured in the Vegas mass shooting. Calzadillas suffered a massive brain injury after being shot in the head and is still being treated at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.
