Thompson Square, Colt Ford open Pepsi Grandstand Wednesday night
Just beside the bright fuchsia Euroslide, and beyond the tall, shining Ferris wheel, the Pepsi Grandstand flashed red, white and blue lights across a crowd clutching oversized stuffed teddy bears and sticks of pink cotton candy.
It was opening night of the South Carolina State Fair Wednesday, and the spirit of the South ruled the evening with performances by married country crooners Shawna and Keifer Thompson of Thompson Square and Colt Ford.
The opening act was something. Ford, an Athens, Ga., native, humbly took off his black cowboy hat and confessed: “Them Gamecocks are going on, aren’t they? You beat the hell out of my Bulldogs.”
Ford brands himself a country rapper. It’s really a one-man genre, and he’s covered it more than any artist should.
Rap is a loosely applied term — I would, in fact, love to see Jay-Z and Kanye on either side of the self-proclaimed redneck country artist. Just for the sport of it. His songs are long-running, almost always flat takes on America, God, single-wide trailers and dirt roads.
Jason Aldean tried his hand at the rap game once, with the song “Dirt Road Anthem.” It made the country charts, but the chorus (the actual rap), is what is best described as hard times. Ford wrote it.
In fact, his set was an extended version of that rap, but much worse. A personal favorite was what he called his version of a love song: “Chicken & Biscuits.”
It described his lady as, “way hotter than the South Carolina asphalt.” And really, is there a more flattering compliment?
Ford then took a brief break from the mic and moved to the drums. He introduced his drummer, Rick Brothers, and listed a few key details, including, “He drives a Camaro!” The crowd broke into a cheer.
Brothers, shamelessly sporting a pair of acid-wash jeans, took to center stage for an off-key rendition of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On a Prayer.” It was very much like a night at the karaoke bar, up through Brother’s closing pose: a bicep curl that showcased his upper-arm tattoo.
Ford ran to the front and called for the audience to hold up all their lighters and cell phones in the air, “like fireflies on a Carolina night.” He also noted that his buddy, Aldean, special requested a video of the Carolina crowd during Ford’s performance of “Dirt Road Anthem.”
The country rapper, who was wearing sunglasses between the hours of 7 and 8 p.m., handed the chorus over to the audience. It quickly fell flat, with a few pockets of teenage girls in cowboy boots and the scattered baseball-capped fathers holding up the bulk of the lyrics.
Then, just when you’d have assumed there was really nothing left to see, Ford rolled into some pelvic thrusts and a monotone “Sexy and I Know It.”
He gave a shout out to his friend Porkchop from “Ice Road Truckers,” and closed with a song that revolved around this chorus: “Meet me at the Waffle House, it’s going down / I just found out my old lady’s been messin’ around.”
The saving grace was headlining act Thompson Square.
“Love and Marriage” by Frank Sinatra began to play through the speakers, with the dark stage building on the hype of the chart-topping couple.
The two appeared on stage steps, side by side, Shawna in a tiered white dress and Keifer in a black leather jacket. Their voices and between-song banter were in sync.
They played through familiar favorites like “I Got You,” and stood center stage, arm-in-arm as they sang, “What my arms are wrapped around, that’s enough.” It doesn’t get much sweeter.
Until, of course, they stood at the front of the stage, face-to-face and sang “All the Way.” Shawna rested her head on Keifer’s left shoulder as he strummed the electric guitar.
The stage lights went low, and they simply sang the chorus of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire.” Keifer then moved into a long-winded riff with the band’s guitarist.
That last part was lost on most of the arena, and only earned a slight applause. But it was great.
The night was full of name-dropping, from Colt Ford’s set to the Thompsons’. It was like all three were under contract by the entire genre. Thompson Square told us about a text exchange between Keifer and Darius Rucker regarding the football stadium and the Carolina crowd. Darius said hello.
The audience also got the debut performance of the duo’s new single “If I Didn’t Have You,” off their new album due out this spring.
However, the most well-received song of the night was “Glass.” Blue stage lights beamed down on Shawna as she slowly opened the touching track. She then turned to face Keifer, sharing the in-hand microphone for the second half of the ballad.
However, despite any review or record sales, Ford was definitely the crowd favorite.
Between sets, fans standing in the pit returned to the pool of fair food and rickety rides, and as the Thompson Square set continued, more started to straggle away.
There was no cheer or enraged shouting for “one more song,” but the country couple came back for an encore. After half the Grandstand cleared out.
It was “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not” and Shawna’s hope was that someone on the Ferris wheel would “hear it and get lucky tonight.”
Halfway through the song, Keifer looked into the crowd and saw a man wearing a shirt that said, “Are You Going to Marry Me or Not?” The woman standing by his side was in tears.
She said yes.