Tritt lands in gutter but Sawyer Brown rides high

Courtesy of Warner Brothers Travis Tritt disappointed as Friday's headliner at the Palace.

Both Sawyer Brown and Travis Tritt kept making appeals to the Red Wings fans at their show at The Palace of Auburn Hills on Friday evening. Sawyer Brown's appeal was somewhat legitimate since two members of the band are from Michigan. But Tritt's attempts at pleasing the Detroit fans - such as his set - became tiresome.

REVIEW

The combination of these two well-established acts failed to completely fill the arena, despite all the hype the show had in the previous weeks on local radio stations. Even the crowd didn't resemble the usual Palace country audience. While there a few cowboy hats, they weren't the dominating style. This is rather surprising since both acts have a sound that is much more traditional than many of today's acts.

Sawyer Brown has been playing together for nearly 18 years and first broke onto the national scene in the mid-'80s during which time it managed to build a loyal following. But the extent of its success, while nothing small, hasn't been overwhelming and its music isn't played on the radio nearly as much as Tritt's. This became abundantly clear as lead singer Mark Miller held up his microphone asked the crowd to sing along - and then was met with silence. At one point he even had to stop a song, which he claimed was one of their biggest hits, and said how it would be "Really cool, if the audience acted like it." This was than met with a resounding roar.

The band made up for the audiences lack of knowledge of its music. The band managed to hold the crowd's attention for the full set playing its brand of country rock while hamming it up on stage. What made this all the more appealing was its songs all had a certain wit and the tunes that weren't funny weren't nearly as trite as so many country songs are.

Most of Travis Tritt's tunes are about essentially modern cowboy anthems: about drinking and getting dumped, the stereotypical country lyrics. In his music, he emphasizes the importance staying true to the sounds of old school country and rock 'n' roll. When he emerged looking like a member of Spinal Tap in revealingly tight black leather pants, that the legitimacy of this came into certain question.

The high point of his set came in the middle when his band left the stage and he played four songs without accompaniment. While doing so, he demonstrated his abilities as a guitar player and showed that he isn't some Nashville puppet who has to be carried by his back up band. The rest of this set was decent with some other highlights which included; "Call Someone Who Cares," and a surprising cover of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive." The only song they he didn't execute well was the power ballad "Tell Me I Was Dreaming" his voice was really straining when trying to hit the lower notes in the song.

The encore Tritt gave was miserable. After 10 minutes, which was enough time for half the crowd to leave, he came back on stage. Instead of starting up with a song he began to read out a thank you list which included Detroit's two country stations, all of his sponsors - for those members of the crowd who were to far away to see the Pontiac signs on the back of stage - and of course his fans.

Finally, he started playing again to a near-empty arena. His last few songs lacked any real intensity. Even his performance of "Sweet Home Alabama," which seems to be a standard at most country shows these days was rather weak. It was a shame that he tried to appeal to the audiences sentiments with a standard instead of his own material of which he does have a very decent amount.

Sawyer Brown and Travis Tritt have both managed to stay true to the sound of country music. But Sawyer Brown did a better job making its material more accessible and believable and in doing so managed to upstage its headliner. Tritt showed that being more dominant on the charts doesn't always guarantee your audience is going to stick around to hear you.

Oct. 16, 1998

Palace of Auburn Hills

Travis Tritt & Sawyer Brown

10-20-98