It’s only been slightly more than a decade since Morgan Wallen released his debut single, “The Way I Talk,” in 2015. Since then, he’s become one of the biggest superstars in music, routinely jockeying back and forth with Taylor Swift for artist of the year on Billboard’s year end charts.
Like Swift, he is also one of contemporary music’s largest live draws, routinely playing multiple nights at stadiums on tour before an adoring audience.
As he kicked off the Still The Problem tour Friday night (April 10) at Minneapolis’s U.S. Bank Stadium (with a second show Saturday night), he showed why his popularity is only growing. Wallen has developed into an energetic, engaging performer, who is eager to make a stadium show seem as intimate as possible. With 20 No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, his show is chockful of hits, but he still made room for thoughtful song choices.
The show opened with a taped piece featuring popular podcaster Theo Von as Rick the stage manager, who is unsuccessfully trying to keep Wallen from touching the equipment. Wallen touches a light knob and the lights in the stadium go up. He messes with a propane tank and flash pots go off. It’s clever, but even more impressive is the video has the name of the venue, city and an accurate time clock, which we imagine will change in every city. That attention to detail is impressive and it was later clear how much thought had gone into every element of the show.
After the taped piece, Wallen continued the now tradition of walking out to “Broadway Girls” with a native son (there haven’t been too many native daughters) in the city he’s playing in. Opening night, it was former Minnesota Viking and Hall of Famer Jared Allen, and the crowd went crazy when they spotted him. Again, it’s an add-on that ignites the audience, pay homage to their hometown, and heightens the show.
With three acts on the bill besides Wallen, the country star is working hard to give the audience top value for its dollar. For the first night in Minneapolis (and on a handful of other dates), the singer was joined by Thomas Rhett, an arena headliner of his own. Also along are developing acts Vincent Mason and Gavin Adcock (who later joined Wallen for a messy, but fun “Up Down,” made more amusing because Mason and Adcock were dressed in white caddy jumpsuits in homage to The Masters, which is going on).
Though he’s only been off the road for a few months, there was clearly pent-up demand for Wallen: the women in front of me at Will Call screamed for five minutes when they realized their tickets were in the pit, allowing them to get up close to Wallen. The group sitting behind me declared Friday night’s show was in the top five concerts they’ve ever seen and then upgraded it to top three as the night wore on.
The show is finding its pacing, which is understandable since it was opening night. Wallen came out 20 minutes late (and 70 minutes after Thomas Rhett finished his set). Also, while the setlist is strong, it feels like a collection of randomly placed songs (with one exception noted below) rather than an attempt to take the audience on an emotional adventure with a story arc. Wallen came out hot, rushing around the gigantic stage and then after a few songs, slowed down and said he was trying to “calm my heart rate,” perhaps a reference to being awed by the audience and the reception, but also by the sheer athleticism it takes to sing and run on that mammoth stage (We’d be interested to know how many miles Wallen logs in one performance. The dude is in serious shape.)
Below are the best moments from the tour’s opening night at U.S. Bank Stadium.
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Thomas Rhett Shines
Wallen has three openers for each show: two newer acts and one bonafide headliner on their own. For the tour’s first show, it was Thomas Rhett, who goes on his own arena tour later this year (and will co-headline two stadiums with Niall Horan). Rhett took the stage while it was still light out for a nearly hour-long energetic set that brought great vibes. He delivered hit after crowd-pleasing hit from the up tempo “Make Me Wanna” and “Look What God Gave Her” to “Beautiful” and “Die A Happy Man,” which all deal with being in love or appreciating feminine charms. Not everything was rosy though as he also performed his most devastating song, “Marry Me,” which never fails to feel like a body blow. A song that Rhett didn’t record landed one of his biggest receptions of the night: “She Had Me At Heads Carolina,” Cole Swindell’s 2022 smash that Rhett co-wrote.
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Still Crazy After All These Years
Wallen tends to stay away from politics or topical issues in song and publicly, but one exception is “I’m A little Crazy” from I’m The Problem. While it mentions no specific societal ills, the song still manages to capture the scary, disorienting times we live in no matter on what side of the political spectrum you may fall. The protagonist is a pill-popping’ drug dealer who keeps a loaded gun by his bed because, as he sings, “I’m a little crazy, but the world’s insane,” while he witnesses various disconcerting scenarios. It is one of the finest songs he’s recorded (co-written by HARDY), but it’s Wallen’s world-weary delivery that really brings it home.
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B There for the Fans
“I’m a Little Crazy” was one of three songs performed on a B stage at the back of stadium to cater to fans who were farthest away from the main stage. The remote stage is something Wallen incorporated a few years ago when he moved to stadiums, and gives him a chance, as he said to the audience, “a chance to look you in the eyes and say ‘Thank you.’ It’s become one of my favorite parts of the show.” Wallen, accompanied only by guitarists/vocalists Dominic Frost and Tyler Tomlinson, also performed his cover of Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up,” and his huge hit “Wasted on You.” Taking place pretty much midway through the show, the mini set was a highlight, not only for the sense of intimacy, but because Wallen’s voice was fully warmed up and he twisted some notes, held others for a duration and generally showed what his fluid voice can accomplish. Where’s MTV’s “Unplugged” when you need it? Did we mention that the edges of the small rectangular stage caught on fire (intentionally) to heighten the drama of three of his strongest songs?
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Misery Business
Wallen has built his career on being love’s malcontent and, quite frankly, we’re here for it. In Wallen’s world, love is a losing game. Whether it leads to drowning your sorrows in songs like “Whiskey Glasses” or “You Proof” or is toxic love that refuses to be extinguished in “Thinkin’ Bout Me” or is fleeting in “20 Cigarettes” or “Love Somebody” — all of which Wallen performed — much of Wallen’s canon is based on love that doesn’t work out. The world has enough silly love songs, Wallen is there for everyone who doesn’t have a permanent plus one and who knows that sometimes love just stinks. Misery loves company, especially when it comes surrounded by 70,000 strangers.
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Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand
It’s hard to make a massive stadium feel intimate, but Wallen tries harder than many entertainers to make as many points of contact as he can with fans. It seemed like he tried to take selfies with everyone in the pit and he crouched down so much to get closer to the fans that it’s a wonder his knees didn’t give out. Combine that with walking through the audience to get to the B stage in the rear of the stadium and back and that segment of the show and it’s hard to think what more Wallen could have done to try to shrink the stadium and make it feel like a club.
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Powerful Production
There’s no way to overstate the high-tech, impressive production. After the Theo Von bit and Wallen walking out with former Viking Allen, it still took a minute for him to hit the stage. First, on the stories-high video screen the dominated the rear of the stage, the crowd saw a video of a fighter jet taking dizzying, powerful flight off an aircraft carrier. We may be wrong here and maybe Wallen was just being patriotic, but it felt like it tied in to the massive stage that seemed shaped like a fighter plane with a nose that reached to the halfway point on the floor, as well as two wings that extended far across the stadium floor and a body/tail that led back to the main stage where the band mainly spent it’s time and Wallen occasionally visited. If you’re not sitting up high up enough, the imagery may not be apparent (and again, we could be wrong). As if that weren’t impressive enough, from almost the start of the show, there were flash pots spewing arcs of flames into the air (including from two cutouts on the wings of the stage that Wallen had to make sure to stay clear of) and fireworks going off indoors. Add to that, fans were given light-up bracelets (similar to ones on Taylor Swift’s tour) when they walked in that were synchronized with the beat and the color of the lights rimming the stage. It was a grand spectacular designed to give maximum entertainment value and literal bang for fan’s buck. Only downside was the stage was so gargantuan that it was occasionally hard to find where Wallen was.
