Florida Georgia Line's Camden set is automatic for the people
If youre a fan of consistency, Florida Georgia Line is where its at. Together with a five-piece band, the duo put on a polished, predictable show at the BB&T Pavilion.
Listen to enough country radio and it can feel as if you're playing Mad Libs, and no one's Mad Libbier than Florida Georgia Line. At their show at the BB&T Center on Friday night, Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard - who, sure enough, respectively hail from Florida and Georgia - hit pause on their party anthems long enough to convene an impromptu hootenanny with openers Cole Swindell and Jaren Johnston, underlining their origins in Nashville's teeming community of songwriters for hire.
But even with stools and acoustic guitars, it was as personal as a PowerPoint presentation. Hubbard shouted out Jersey several times but never mentioned Philadelphia, and seemed to be under the impression he was playing to a crowd of 150,000. (No one tell him the BB&T Pavilion only seats a sixth that many.) It was like being at a trade show, watching a company roll out its latest product line.
If you're a fan of consistency, FGL is where it's at. Together with a five-piece band, the duo put on a polished, predictable show, exalting the virtues of home, family, God, and, above all, having a good time. Real flames belched from the stage and virtual ones licked at the video screens behind them, because any shopworn gimmick worth investing in is worth investing in twice.
Sure, it might have been easy to confuse the song during which they sing about having a good time on a Friday night ("Anything Goes") with the one about having a good time on a Saturday night ("Round Here"). In the world of Florida Georgia Line, singing about Bud Light instead of Jack Daniels counts as a paradigm shift. But the crowd, at least those who made it to their seats without passing out from a combination of heat stroke and pre-gaming, wasn't looking for variety, just enough to get them through the night.
The band, which will play Atlantic City on Sept. 3, showed off several songs from its forthcoming album, Dig Your Roots, which it has touted as showing off a more varied sound. An encore medley - they called it a "mixtape" - tipped a hat to influences ranging from Backstreet Boys to House of Pain, and some of the new material did trade boozy braggadocio for maudlin sentiment.
But it was like sprinkling a dash of seasoning into a vat of Cheez Whiz. It all went down smooth, as long as you didn't think too hard about the ingredients.