Review: Walker Hayes brings the party to Tucson debut

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 “Bourbon Street steak and the Oreo shake.”

But Hayes, in his first ever Tucson show and the fourth stop on his “Same Drunk” tour, waited until the very end to give the crowd “Fancy Like,” aka the “Applebees Song.”

For 90 minutes leading up to that, he took us on a journey into what has come to define much of today’s country music.

It’s not your mama’s 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.

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The emphasis for him is on the lyrics, catchy hooks and phrase turns where a spurned ex gets his “forget you on” after “You Broke Up With Me” and prom-night high school kids “travel like James Harden in them white limousines to the Olive Garden” in the perfect small town of “Y’all Life.”

Hayes’s too-cool-for-country swagger was on full display for “High Heels,” his collaboration with rapper Flo Rida, who “performed” his part at Friday’s concert courtesy a recording. Flo Rida sings about high heels on the beach while Hayes muses aloud about missing out on a Grammy because “I guess they don’t do fancy like me.” The audience’s 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 — 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 “AA,” 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, it’s country. We raised tallboys in solidarity to the realization of life being a choice of vices leading to the “Same Drunk,” different beer, and cheered when he professed his love of “Country Stuff” — beers cheap and cold, chairs that rock and fold. When he dusted off his 2018 homage to “90s Country,” we sang along to those song titles borrowed from those long-ago hits. And when Hayes slowed things down and sang “Briefcase,” 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 “two straws, one check, girl I got you.” It’s 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 didn’t even care who was watching.