PHOENIX — George Strait peered from beneath his Resistol cowboy hat Friday at the 16,500 people packed into the US Airways Center and shot them a schoolboy grin.
"I'm gonna love you one day past forever / But that's as far as it goes," he sang. The crowd howled, and that grin spread into a full-on smile that has become as much a part of Strait's stage personality as his perfectly pressed Wranglers and button-down Western shirts.
Strait has plenty of reasons to smile. He's in the middle of a winter tour — the first big country tour of 2007 — that's selling out at every stop including Phoenix. And he's on the verge of adding another No. 1 hit to his unprecedented and possibly unbeatable string of 53 hits. "It Just Comes Natural" is poised to bolt from the No. 2 spot to No. 1.
Watching him in his two-hour concert, though, you get the impression those No. 1 hit songs are a close second to the exhilaration he experiences on stage.
The Strait of years past has loosened up. He no longer plants himself behind the mic and sings those delicious songs, strumming a guitar or just beating on it with a half-closed hand. He struts a bit, glides with a two-step across the stage, and smiles.
On Friday, Strait was downright playful, fairly skipping across a large square stage set in the center of the arena. Each of the four corners had a microphone, and large screens suspended from the ceiling on all four sides projected him so that no matter what side of the stage he played, you had a bird's-eye view.
He paced himself — two songs to each side then glide, glide, skip, glide to the next microphone. Two more songs, a few words to the audience, then glide, glide, skip, glide again.
When he made it around to your side of the stage, you bolted from your seat with the majority of your area and sang along with all the gusto of an uninvited but welcome chorus.
"Well they call me the fireman / That's my name," he sang and the crowd chimed in with "Making my rounds all over town/ Putting out old flames."
"Amarillo by morning/ Up from San Antone," he began, and the crowd finished, "Everything that I've got / Is just what I've got on."
The voices were perhaps their loudest when he sang the opening line of "The Seashores of Old Mexico": "I left out of Tucson/ With no destination in mind."
A group of folks in the front row pushed against the stage and yelled the word "Tucson!" and Strait nodded with a knowing smile.
Strait played for just shy of two hours before taking his pre-encore bow. The applause was so loud it could hurt a dog's ears. Fans took out cell phones and the blue-white light twinkled throughout the arena. He returned moments later and those screams grew to a fever pitch.
Strait brought along country newcomer Taylor Swift and veteran hit maker Ronnie Milsap, who racked up 40 hits in his heyday in the 1970s and '80s. In many ways it felt like watching country music's past, present and future packed into four hours.
The 17-year-old Swift struck a confident pose in her four-song, 15-minute set that included her first Top 5 hit "Tim McGraw" and her forthcoming second single, a ballad about unrequited teen love "Teardrops on My Guitar."
The audience loved her from the moment she bounded on stage from a locker room tunnel used by the resident Phoenix Suns to the moment she made her way back through that tunnel, shaking every outstretched hand.
Milsap came through that same tunnel moments later, greeted by a standing ovation and deafening applause. For nearly 45 minutes, he took us back to the 1970s when he ruled the radio with his pop-friendly country songs like "Stranger in My House," "Any Day Now," "What A Difference You've Made in My Life" and "I Wouldn't Have Missed it For the World."
He moved a little unsteadily — his backup singer led the blind singer-songwriter to keyboards set up at three of the stage's four corners. But his voice was as pure, steady and honest as it was 30 years ago.
Review
George Strait in concert Friday at US Airways Center in Phoenix with Taylor Swift and Ronnie Milsap.
