Solo cups and cans of beer were held high above the crowd, as girls put their cowboy boots to the pavement and made the speakers go boom boom. The spirit of the South was alive and well Saturday night, as the Tin Roof hosted Luke Bryan, Lee Brice and Josh Thompson in its first-ever outdoor show.
The four-hour show, held in the parking lot of the Vista's Tin Roof, brought a little bit of the country to Columbia, making a 3,500-person show in the heart of the city feel like a true country pavilion event. Concertgoers sipped their drinks, sang along with each of the acts and showed no shame in their dance moves.
Girls sat atop guys' shoulders, shouting out lyrics to "Country Girl (Shake It for Me)" right back at Bryan, and the music – supplemented with killer Poison, Vanilla Ice and Lady Gaga covers – created an almost unreal energy and a whole new venue and future for the city's music scene.
Josh Thompson, the first in the "CMT on Tour" set, took the stage, earning a cheer from the audience that most resembled, "Here's to health, Carolina" – the crowd was blanketed with cans on beer, raised to the stage, as Thompson asked, "You feel like singing tonight, Columbia, S.C.?"
Thompson took a minute to praise the troops – a staple in each of the night's sets – saying, "God bless the men and women fighting overseas. If it weren't for people like them, I couldn't sing about reading the Bible, owning a gun or listening to Johnny Cash."
He then earned a cans-up salute for his shout outs to John Wayne, Johnny Cash and John Deere in his performance of "Way Out Here."
Sumter native Lee Brice followed up Thompson just as the sun went down, running on stage with, "Columbia, S.C., it feels so good to be home."
Starting off his set with "Four on the Floor," Brice pumped up the show with "Sumter County Friday Night" and "She Ain't Right" before bringing a stool stage-front for an acoustic version of "A Woman Like You."
Brice covered Eli Young Band's "Crazy Girl," doing best with his a capella belt of the final chorus. And the country crooner finished off his set on the same note, reducing the audience to a much-welcomed sway with "Love Like Crazy."
And then, with dangerously tight jeans and a Solo cup full of whiskey, Bryan proved his headlining spot.
He played up the Gamecock love and spent his set reaching down to front-row fans and pelvic-thrusting through his sweet Southern tunes. He welcomed everyone to the Tin Roof parking lot, bringing people back from the country air and dirt road to the long-forgotten pavement.
"I'm so happy to be here in the heart of an SEC school on a Saturday night," Bryan said.
The sound of the crowd almost overpowered Bryan as he sang "Drunk on You" and an abbreviated, audience-led "Sorority Girl," and moved right into a call for all his deer-hunters and beer-drinkers.
This is a song for those "who like to drink beer and hunt deer all at the same time," Bryan said as he began singing "Drinkin' Beer and Wastin' Bullets."
Bryan, who grew up in Leesburg, Ga., and went to school at Georgia Southern, worked the Gamecocks and Columbia into his songs, and brought the Carolina-Clemson rivalry to a head with an on-stage dance competition between two boys in the crowd, each sporting their respective team's baseball cap. The guys shook it for the crowd to Bryan's "Country Girl" with Carolina's rep Paul busting what "Jersey Shore's" Deena would call the "Jersey Turnpike."
"Paul, son, it looks like you were filming a porno," Bryan said as he crowned the Gamecock the winner.
He then invited the boys backstage for a beer as the crowd joined in a "U-S-C" chant.
And even the most weary country fans couldn't deny Bryan's closing mashup of everything from Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" to Poison's "Nothin' But a Good Time."
Bryan covered all his bases – he was heartfelt and sensitive, taking to the grand piano for "Do I," and revved-up and sexual for his stage-spanning performances of Steve Miller Band's "The Joker" and "It's a Shore Thing."
It was quite simply, from start to finish, an amazing show. It gave a new heart to country music and turned Columbia, just for one night, into a small town in the soul of the Southern life.