CONCERT REVIEW: A laid-back Alan Jackson entertains Verizon Arena

“We’re kinda laid-back up here,” proclaimed country star Alan Jackson to the crowd of 10,849 at Verizon Arena there for his Honky Tonk Highway tour.

Perhaps any other musician staking that claim would risk making fans, who had paid decent money to see a performance, mad. Jackson, who is now 59 and is looking back at a sustained success in country music starting with his 1990 hit “Here in the Real World, was only telling the truth.

So while Jackson and his eight-piece band certainly didn’t attempt any stage aerobics (outside of Jackson occasionally tossing rolled-up T-shirts like lobbed softballs), Verizon’s appreciative masses soaked up the Georgia-native’s “Gone Country” approach. Jackson’s songbook is built on a traditional country materials. As the man himself at one point said on stage – “songs about life, about drinking, heartache, dyin’, cryin’.” Those songs were bolstered Saturday night by an adept band that featured a fiddle, pedal steel and slide guitar.

The concert featured Jackson’s popular songs scattered throughout out his career. “I Don’t Even Know Your Name” performed early on in the set was dated by the fact that the video for the song playing on the simple screen behind Jackson stared Jeff Foxworthy. “The Blues Man” was a worthy excuse to showcase the band as it dug into and lifted up the tune’s melancholy melody.

Overall, the concert provided an interesting look at the development of Jackson as a songwriter. He only performed a small part of his 1990 hit, “Chasing that Neon Rainbow,” which came across as a young man’s song. Toward the end of the concert, Jackson sang the mature and indelible 9/11 tribute “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning).” He followed that with “Remember When,” which reaches for the impossible in trying to sum up a relationship and life and accomplishes it with heart shattering ease.

Jackson was certainly right about the cryin’ part.

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