Paisley sets the tone for a big-tent party
By Sam Adams

The Saturday between political conventions was full of charged rhetoric, but at the Susquehanna Bank Center, Brad Paisley was having none of it. "Republican Party, Democratic Party, you can forget about it," he told the crowd. "The only party that matters is the Brad Paisley party."
Though his music is resolutely apolitical, Paisley excels at bridging divides. Men and women, jocks and geeks, the sarcastic and the soft-hearted all find a place under his musical tent. He cracked wise with "Online," singing as a nerd who's "so much cooler" in the virtual world, and showed off his sentimental side with "When I Get Where I'm Going," a hymn to the afterlife, accompanied by a slide show of the recently departed. (Take note, demographers: The cheers for country legend Porter Waggoner were eclipsed by those for James Brown, ((((((but both paled beside the applause for crocodile hunter Steve Irwin.))))))))))

A crack guitarist with a vocal-free album called Play due out this year, Paisley relishes cutting loose with swift, deft runs; not for nothing is one instrumental called "Throttleneck." But he never lets the solo overpower the song. The guitar duel in "Better Than This" was a brisk skirmish, not a drawn-out war.

As a songwriter, Paisley is clever as well as smart. His best songs turn on crafty reversals. "Ticks" conjures visions of romps in flowery fields before slyly offering to check his companion for the titular bloodsucker. Sung to what Paisley called his "scared" high school self, "Letter to Me" shows uncommon vulnerability, but its implicit happy ending came into focus when Paisley's yearbook photo flashed on the screen behind him.

Throughout the show, Paisley and his six-piece band, the Drama Kings, were joined by virtual guests. A pretaped B.B. King appeared "live" via satellite to add vocals to "Let the Good Times Roll," and canny use of video made it appear as if Alison Krauss had materialized onstage to reprise her duet on Paisley's "Whiskey Lullaby."

Opener Jewel, however, showed up in the flesh to harmonize on "That's the Way Love Goes." Jewel has followed the path of many a flagging pop singer by undergoing a midcareer conversion to country music. Whatever the calculations behind it, her roots revival has curbed the grating excess of her prolix poetry, the baby-croak. To judge by the crowd's enthusiastic response to songs from her Nashville-recorded Perfectly Clear, the switch has taken hold.