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Thunder booms in the desert

Country Thunder Arizona 2022
Canyon Moon Ranch, Florence, AZ
April 7-10, 2022

Florida Georgia Line

Review & Photos by Mary Andrews

It had only been six months since the last Country Thunder in Florence due to the pandemic. In spite of that, this was one of the largest attended Country Thunder Festivals in history.

Thursday is a short entertainment day since people were still streaming down the dirt road to get to camping sites and the entertainment areas. Nolan Sotillo kicked things off at the main stage and he did his best to get the party started singing some well-known cover songs as well as self penned tunes. He did a medley of Tim McGraw's "I Like It, I Love It" and Georgia Satellites' "Keep Your Hands to Yourself." Add in Tom Petty's "You Wreck Me" and Harry Styles' "Watermelon Crawl" to get the energy into the spare crowd ahead of the night of music.

Lindsey Ell followed with her third appearance at CT Florence and she was a show-stopper. She shreds like the best and is a delight to watch as she tears it up on nearly every song. It was easy to recognize her breakthrough hit record "Criminal." Her duet with Brantley Gilbert"What Happens in a Small Town" has become a fan favorite and her 2020 album, Heart Theory, has garnered a lot of attention. Ell mentioned that she has essentially grown up on stage which may be why she is such a natural entertainer.

Riley Green headlined the first night performing songs of small town, rural America celebrating the American flag with songs "Different 'Round Here," "If It Wasn't For Trucks, and "Outlaws Like Us."

Friday's highlights started with Jackson Dean's early afternoon set. He was revved up and ready to go with a rock laced country set. Dressed in black from head to foot, he mesmerized the fans from the start. Songs included "Trailer Park" and "Don't Come Lookin.'" The latter song was used on the TV series, Yellowstone.

The Canadian band, The James Barker Band, are hugely popular in their home country. They have four chart topping country singles, a Juno Award for Country Album of the Year and a Canadian Music Award for Country Single of Year. They describe themselves as being very 'lucky.'

Of course one of their recent big hits is a song written and performed with Dierks Bentley, "New Old Trucks." Things are looking up for this band.

Phil Vassar was a showman through and through with his late afternoon set. The piano players' set was front-loaded with the hits "That's When I Love You," Six-Pack Summer," and The Four Seasons' "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)."

Michael Ray has played CT previously in earlier time slots. Today, he was sporting an Army t-shirt and ready to raise the roof. Ray's new single is "Holy Water" and he delivered the song with aplomb. He performed his hits and songs penned for other artists including Jason Aldean's "Small Town Small" and Big & Rich's "Run Away With You."

Gabby Barrett is another American Idol graduate from 2018. Her first two singles hit the top of Billboard's country charts and now she is performing in a top Country Thunder slot before Blake Sheldon. Her husband, Cade Foehner, was right by her side singing and playing guitar throughout the show. There was a huge sing-a-long with Barrett's rendition of "Don't Stop Believing."

Friday's final act of the evening was Blake Sheldon. Sheldon has been a frequent performer at CT, but tonight, even he was impressed by the huge crowd in front of the stage. Sheldon exclaimed at the beginning of his set, "My name is Blake Sheldon and I came to Arizona for two reasons, to drink and play country music."

And that he did. It was everything a CT fan could hope for on a Friday night Sheldon brought up the fact that "(We were) in the middle of the desert, literally next to a federal penitentiary, and ya'll are out here raising hell like all of this is normal. It's not. This is weird." Let's not overlook Gwen Stefani joining him on a pair of romantic duets Ñ "Nobody But You" and "Happy Anywhere."It was CT bliss.

Alabama native, Tyler Braden, kicked off the third day of CT. His week had an incredible start when he appeared earlier in the week making the semifinals on NBC's reality series, American Song Contest. The show is all about the song and Braden's song "Seventeen" made the grade. His gritty performance had the early set a commanding performance for the "Morgan Wallen" day.

Canadian singer and fiddle player, MacKenzie Porter, gave her set all the enthusiasm one would expect from a singer with three chart topping singles. She recently topped Billboard's Country Airplay charts with a feature on the Dustin Lynch hit "Thinkin' Bout You."

Bronco Brown brought the house down with his late afternoon set.

Brown is known as a rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. His debit single "The Git Up" has streamed over 200 million times on Spotify. Add extraordinary showman to his list of accomplishments. He was wildly entertaining as he professed that he wanted to "see people learn to love themselves so they can learn to love others."

Brown was clearly the highlight of the day. Tracy Lawrence was CT's representative to old country music as Lawrence music dates back to the early 90s with more than 40 singles in Billboard's Country Song charts. He boasts two of his albums receiving platinum status. His fans sang along to songs like "Time Marches On" and "Paint Me a Birmingham." He sang his latest single, "Don't Drink Whiskey."

Hardy stepped up to create the perfect mood for the night's headliner, Morgan Wallen. Wearing a D-Backs jersey, it was apparent Hardy aimed to please the Arizona crowd. He promised at the beginning of the set "I'm still the same old redneck." His performance of "Rednecker" had people gleefully shouting the line "You might think that you're redneck, but I'm rednecker than you."

He brought MacKenzie Porter on stage to join him on "One Beer," a celebration of getting drunk enough to accidentally start a family. Morgan Wallen headlined what was surely the biggest night of 2022's CT. Fun fact: Wallen competed on season 6 of The Voice. He was eliminated during the playoffs.

He opened the set at CT playing piano and singing "Sand in My Boots" from his most recent album, Dangerous. Wallen had a hand in writing 16 of the album's 30 songs. Dangerous became 2021's best selling album. Wallen sang 16 of the songs from the album during the set.

Wallen spoke about the inspiration the songs he has written and he did not mention the TMZ video that led to his concerts being cancelled last year. The crowd seemed to be impervious to the incident and were singing along to all of the songs on his new album

The final day of the festival was headlined by Florida Georgia Line. They have played the festival many times in the past. The duo have a steady list of hits since they started in 2010. The tone was set with a raucous "I Love My Country." The duo have 13 hits that have topped the Billboard Country charts headed by "Cruise" that spent 24 weeks at the top of Billboard's country charts.

"Cruise" along with "Long Live" and "Meant to Be" were certainly a part the set tonight. Many sing-a-longs were a major portion of the show. Rumor has it that the duo is going to disband for an unspecified amount of time after they complete the dates they have scheduled in 2022.

Earlier in the day, the other representative of old time country music was Sawyer Brown. Mark Miller was the only singer this weekend who could tell the crowd "We're going to play y'all 38 years worth of music right now." They reached back to their breakthrough on "Star Search" with an animated "Smokin' in the Rockies" and such early hits as "Step That Step" and "Betty's Bein' Bad."

Maggie Rose was also another act that should have been labeled a "no miss." Her impressive vocals were enough to stop you dead in your tracks. She gave Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" a soulful makeover, rocking an Aretha Franklin vibe on "Do It" or taking country fans to church on the Sunday gospel-flavored "Pull You Through."

The dusty, overly warm weekend came to an end as quickly as it seemed to start with 30,000 people pulling up their stakes and moving out. The majority are saying that they can't wait until next year. If you are really having CT withdrawal symptoms, you can always travel to Canada, Florida, or Wisconsin to catch more Country Thunder in 2022.