For all unapologetic purposes, the audience loosely filling the AVA at Casino del Sol on Friday night were there for one song.
Walker Hayes knew it.
You could tell from the way the pop country singer teased it with his pre-recorded walk-on medley that hinted to the โBourbon Street steak and the Oreo shake.โ
But Hayes, in his first ever Tucson show and the fourth stop on his โSame Drunkโ tour, waited until the very end to give the crowd โFancy Like,โ aka the โApplebees Song.โ
For 90 minutes leading up to that, he took us on a journey into what has come to define much of todayโs country music.
Itโs not your mamaโs country music, with fingers-flying fiddle play and the lonesome wail of steel guitar taking you into the world of breakups, drinking songs and pickup trucks on dirt roads.
To be clear, Hayes takes us into that countrified world but he does it with old-school hip-hop, sans the samplings, fleshed out with zippy pop.
The emphasis for him is on the lyrics, catchy hooks and phrase turns where a spurned ex gets his โforget you onโ after โYou Broke Up With Meโ and prom-night high school kids โtravel like James Harden in them white limousines to the Olive Gardenโ in the perfect small town of โYโall Life.โ
Hayesโs too-cool-for-country swagger was on full display for โHigh Heels,โ his collaboration with rapper Flo Rida, who โperformedโ his part at Fridayโs concert courtesy a recording. Flo Rida sings about high heels on the beach while Hayes muses aloud about missing out on a Grammy because โI guess they donโt do fancy like me.โ The audienceโs whoot-whoots grew deafening when he added a passing reference to eating for free at Applebees.
Hayes on Friday landed in the perfect middle ground of country meets hip-hop, from the backward mesh ballcap and concert T with cutoff sleeves to the way he danced โ a little shimmy and shake, a little hop and bop.
Backed by four young dancers including his 18-year-old daughter Lela, the father of six showed the telltale signs of his 44 years, with grey whiskers dotting his goatee. But when he raised his hands and swayed to โAA,โ his wink-wink tale of trying to do good by his kids, he struck the pose of coolest dad ever.
He showed us Friday that while his music might not have all the country trappings, itโs country. We raised tallboys in solidarity to the realization of life being a choice of vices leading to the โSame Drunk,โ different beer, and cheered when he professed his love of โCountry Stuffโ โ beers cheap and cold, chairs that rock and fold. When he dusted off his 2018 homage to โ90s Country,โ we sang along to those song titles borrowed from those long-ago hits. And when Hayes slowed things down and sang โBriefcase,โ an emotional homage to his late father, we took our seats for one of the few times Friday night.
But those seats proved unnecessary a few minutes later when the audience heard that three-chord opening that led to โtwo straws, one check, girl I got you.โ Itโs corny and cringe-worthy when you get down to it, but that song is so much fun that we found ourselves doing those little moves from the viral TikTok in the small confines of our seat space.
We didnโt even care who was watching.
