Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 25, 1994 TAG: 9404250014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In any case, a three-quarters full Roanoke Civic Center coliseum crowd clearly loved the rising country music star, who brought not only his motorcycle but also a new stage - equipped with elevator - to town on Saturday night.
Tritt immediately buttressed his claim to membership in country music's "outlaw" elite by riding his motorcycle onto the stage to start his show. The crowd greeted the opening rumble of his off-stage bike with screams, and hardly stopped yelling for an hour and a half.
In fact, they were in a cheering mood. They gave warm-up act Lee Roy Parnell's brief high-energy set a standing ovation, for heaven's sake.
Joe Diffie, who followed Parnell, got an equally warm reception. The crowd danced and yelled and waved their arms for Diffie - though his weird trick of dousing the front rows (twice) with a tumbler of water left a few unhappy faces as well.
Tritt appeared after elaborate stage preparations behind a closed curtain. The 30-year-old singer, who has mounted an attack on the top tier of country stardom recently with an appearance at the Super Bowl, an autobiography, a movie role (in "The Cowboy Way") and a job as host of the VH-1 "Country Countdown," has gone all out on this tour.
His fast-paced set featured some 20 songs, including the refreshingly self-deflating title track of his soon-to-be released album, "Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof" ("I'm a full-grown man," go the lyrics, written tongue-in-cheek by the compactly built, long-haired star, "but nowhere near as full-grown as I'd like to be"); an acoustic tribute to such early Tritt heroes as Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash; and lesser-known songs from his earlier albums.
For his bitter breakup ballad, "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)," Tritt added a corny but crowd-pleasing touch: huge inflatable plastic quarters to the left and right of the stage.
A highlight was a surprisingly powerful cover of Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road" - a sinister moonshine-and-marijuana rocker that Tritt accented with rat-a-tat bursts of laser light.
His encore was the signature "T-R-O-U-B-L-E," the title track of his last album.
"Get out your note pads and put a star by `Roanoke,' " Tritt grinned to his band as he returned to the stage, "because we'll be coming back here."
Even at 21 bucks a head, no one was about to complain.
by CNB