Locked & Reloaded III

Sooo, since this is the third time I have seen this tour I am pretty certain I can give
an honest review. Saturday's show was in Albany NY and was sold out! The
prior shows had Thomas Rhett as an opener, who I think is pretty terrific.

I was excited to see Lee Brice opening this show since he is coming off a
few big singles and I had only seen him once prior in a small venue.

Lee Brice played  for about 20mintes and the crowd ate it up. He sounded pretty good on songs “A  Woman Like You” and “Hard to Love” smiling and interacting with the crowd. But  he still has not won me over.
He has a strong voice but I feel as if he’s  overdoing it, punching me with the words or delivering them over dramatically  instead of delivering them to me naturally. And boy does he have the facial 
expressions…..perhaps he’ll grow on me….worked with Miranda Lambert. 

Now  Dierks and the guys’ set, as always, was too
short. But I don’t feel like he was  rushed. The songs flowed nicely
and he seemed to be enjoying himself the entire  time. Many ladies
undergarments were thrown on stage to which he commented that “this was the most pieces of underwear thrown on stage ever”. My favorite parts  of
the show though is when Up On The Ridge is played
and also, the nice acoustic  blue grassified, everyone in front of the catwalk
“Settle for A Slowdown”. The  guys are talented and I think this really shines 
through when they go bare  bones: voices and instruments...that’s it. The set
stayed pretty much the same  except for a few new pics of the band
during the segment where he introduced  them via video screen. The
lighting and video screens are not overused, but as I  have said before, Dierks does not need them.
He and the band, to me, are perfect  as is.  I loved hearing “I Hold On” (a song he wrote
after his father passed...if you want to know who Dierks is, listen to

the lyrics)again and  closing with “Home”, the flag behind them. And
this time he not only gave away  one guitar, but a second to an
adorable little boy in the front….this is one of  the reasons we love him so much. The set list did not
change from previous  shows. However, DB would come out with ML twice before,
once for the finale of “Bad Angel” and another for “It’s A Long Way To The Top”.
The latter song was  taken out of the show and in its place Miranda sang “Do
Right Woman”….why this  change had to take place is beyond me. Another thing 
that bothers me is if this  is a true co-headlining tour why doesn’t Dierks
have an encore? ML comes out to  sing “White Liar” and “Do
Right…”….why can’t Dierks, with 10 #1 hits, come out  and sing an
encore or two? I would even take an encore where the two of them  come out together and sing 3 songs. They are friends and their voices go very  well together…seems logical to me.

Miranda’s set was the same as before  except for the aforementioned extra song. I can do without her rendition of “Mississippi Queen” and the song “Dead Flowers”. I would like to see “Nobody’s  Fool” as a replacement for one of those. She just did not seem all that into it  on Saturday. I wouldn’t say she 
phoned it in, but she did not jump around as  much or interact with
the audience as I have seen at other shows. The finale  though, was like a big party. Both
bands were on stage,  Angaleena Pressley from  Pistol Annies came out as well and Lee Brice. “Bad Angel” it was with a little  misstep for the third verse (who was singing Angaleena
or Lee?) with ML suddenly  having some pep, laughing
and trying to balance a cup on her head. This is the  type of fun atmosphere I
would pay to see every night.

Then after final  bows, unless it was my 
poor lip reading skills, I tell you Lee motioned to DB to  walk off stage with
ML and he would follow. Well, it sure looked like Dierks  said "no come with
us", as he put his arm around Lee and they all walked off  together.

Gotta love this guy. Cannot wait til
April.