Jake Owen, Eli Young play Pepsi Grandstand
There were blue jeans, bare feet and a white shining moon hanging over the stage.
The stands were full long before the sunset — fans overflowed from the three bleacher sections and the general admission floor was full to the back fence.
Eli Young Band and Jake Owen played the closing night of the South Carolina State Fair Sunday and filled the Pepsi Grandstand more than any of the other acts of the 11-day lineup.
A red, yellow and black hot air balloon soared up into the sky, high over Williams-Brice Stadium, as Eli Young Band opened the show.
Young kept it casual in a blue, short-sleeve button-up, jeans and cowboy boots, but the band was much more coordinated. They each had different-colored plaid flannel shirts. It was a snazzy look.
The audience was in love from the first song, “Always the Love Songs.” The Texas country band is perhaps best known for their hit singles “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” and “Crazy Girl,” but the audience threw their hands in the air and sang along to every song of the set, from “Skeletons” to “Every Other Memory.”
Young got existential for a moment: “What are your dreams?” The growing crowd settled for Young’s suggested dream: “Just having a beer tonight.”
There was a collective cheer before the band launched into “Even If It Breaks Your Heart.”
This month marks Eli Young Band’s 13th year as a group, as Young noted on stage, and although he acknowledged “When It Rains” as one of their defining start-ups, “Guinevere” was the set track that carried the most sentimental weight for the star.
Then there was a simple question: “We got any crazy girls out there?”
Girls shot up from their seats and the grandstand erupted into a roar. Teenage couples were caught in an awkward limbo: to sway, link arms or hold hands? It was a problem.
It quickly turned to selfie city, with groups, couples and the vain posing for self-taken iPhone pics as “Crazy girl, don’t ya know that I love you?” rang out in the background.
In a strange last-song pick, or perhaps just true Southern fashion, Eli Young and the band closed their set with their cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps.”
There was a 20-minute intermission before Kelly Nash from radio station WCOS took the stage to introduce the headliner, Jake Owen. It was “time to get barefoot,” with an interestingly worded warning from Nash: “You get your ticklies out there, someone’s going to stomp them.” Not toes. Ticklies.
Owen took the stage with rock show lights to complete the last-set, last-night dramatics, but the singer held true to his blue jeans and bare feet.
He did what every other show has been missing: He started with his hit. The country cutie belted out “The One Who Got Away,” flipping back his long locks between calls out to the adoring crowd.
He cracked jokes and wove South Carolina shout-outs into his list of favorites. Owen was personable, and spent most of his time on top of the stage-front speakers — leading the pit in a rattling “yee-haw” for the same-titled track — or on the strip of stage just beyond.
The truly overwhelming audience sang an a cappella chorus of “Alone With You,” before Owen closed the chart-topper with an impromptu quip of hard feelings: “I can’t be your booty call.”
He took a moment to apologize for his sick voice — he was worried he “sounded like Kermit the Frog” — and thanked the crowd for their backup vocals. It was a moment of sentiment, with Owen going on to say that hearing the audience sing every lyric makes his job worth it.
The lights went low, with the heartwarming words settling throughout the stands. Then, out of the darkness, Owen sang: “I had a one night stand with my best friend’s baby sister.” It’s the first lyric to “Startin’ With Me.”
The only low point of Owen’s run at the mic was his performance of “Summer Jam.” He rapped. And, really, I think it was just too close to Colt Ford for comfort.
“Barefoot Blue Jean Night” was the night’s favorite. The teenagers’ parents jumped up right alongside them, throwing in some unique dance moves — twists, turns, fingers pointed into the sky — and lights once again shone over a true country-loving crowd.
Then something bad happened. It was a questionable move, at best. In order to preserve his ailing voice, Owen gave each band member a run at vocals for a cover of “Fight for Your Right” and “Rock And Roll All Nite.”
What was truly tragic was drummer Myron Howell’s, who Owen dubbed “Sexual Chocolate,” time at the mic for his take on Kiss. There were all kinds of notes being hit, and none of them were doing Owen’s name any sort of justice.
But Owen quickly redeemed himself. A young man named Guy had handed his iPhone up through the audience, on to the stage with a note asking if he could sing “Eight Second Ride” with the leading man.
Guy sang the whole song, solo, as Owen snapped pictures on the passed-up iPhone, and bowed down at the side of the stage.
At the beginning of the show, Young said Owen was one of the best guys he knew. By the end, you believed it.