Jackson delivers with confidence
Saturday, May 22, 2004
JIM DUNN
For The Birmingham News

Watching Alan Jackson easily work a packed Verizon Wireless Music Center on Thursday night, it's easy to see how he has won three consecutive Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year awards.

He delivers his hits and new cuts with an incredible confidence from a set that has enough video equipment to make a Las Vegas revue look sedate. Fans feel like they're in his den, not in a sprawling outdoor concert venue. Entertainers are supposed to entertain, after all, and Jackson ranks with the best.

Opener Martina McBride kicked off the night with a flourish, rising on a platform from beneath an elevated stage to sing "It's My Time." McBride is nothing if not a big-voiced belter, and she delivered the crowd-pleasing goods in a one-hour set, from "Wild Angels" to "My Baby Loves Me" to "Independence Day." A one-song encore of "When God-Fearin' Women Get the Blues" closed McBride's performance up strong.

Thirty minutes after McBride's performance ended, the black curtains that had been drawn across the stage were parted, and Jackson began "Gone Country." He and his eight-piece band, including Birmingham native Bruce Rutherford on drums, were flanked by three large video monitors and a bank of smaller monitors that broadcast both ambient footage and Jackson music videos.

When not behind his microphone stand, Jackson strode the stage in his white sleeveless shirt, carefully ripped jeans and trademark white cowboy hat, delivering hits like "Chasing that Neon Rainbow," "Little Bitty" and "Chattahoochee" while flinging a steady supply of guitar picks into the crowd. During Jackson's performance of "Pop a Top," the smaller video monitors showed footage of beer bubbles heading upward, which made the band look like they were playing in front of the world's highest-proof aquarium.

Crowd-wowing Birmingham images like Dreamland Barbecue, Sloss Furnaces and members of the Birmingham Fire Department played on monitors while Jackson closed out with "Where I Come From." Jackson left the stage briefly, returning for an extended performance of "Mercury Blues" that allowed his band to show their chops while Jackson signed autographs at the edge of the stage.