Yoakam is currently on the road through the fall
Country legend Dwight Yoakam played a sold-out show at Eagle Mountain Casino in Porterville, California, on Saturday night (Aug 9th). The country crooner was decked in his signature tight blue jeans and a jean jacket with card symbols across the bottom at the small venue in the Kern River Valley north of Los Angeles. When he wasn’t standing stoic, he would parade the stage with his trademark dance with the Elvis leg shake and no on-screen visuals.
He started the night with The Carter Family cover of “Keep on the Sunny Side.” Throughout the 90-minute concert, he performed various hits and covers, some of which he made famous, like Elvis Presley’s “Little Sister” and Buck Owens’ “Streets of Bakersfield.”
“I know where we are… ‘Spent some time up in Tulare…’ more specifically, ‘Spent some time up in Porterville’,” he sang during the duet he and the Bakersfield-based Owens released in the late 80s. The crowd embraced the local shoutout, receiving the biggest response of the night as Porterville is an hour north of Bakersfield.
He continued with “I’ll Pay the Price,” a country rocker he co-wrote with mega country songwriter Jeffrey Steele for his latest album, Brighter Days. He told the audience how the song was inspired by Highway 99, which connects Southern California to the north, running through Bakersfield, Fresno, and beyond.
“We danced around and hollered out in Fresno. We got Visalia in there, and Valencia, up and down [Highway] 99. Like the [SiriusXM] radio channel let me loose a few years ago, The Bakersfield Beat says, ‘We’re all living on the coast of Greater Bakersfield.’ That’s what it is. We’re just all up and down the Valley, here. It’s all part of the Bakersfield sound, the Bakersfield Beat. Thank you all for coming to hang with us tonight,” he said before launching into the song.
He continued through his 30+ year catalog that includes “Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose,” the Queen cover of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” which he recorded in 1999 and was featured in the 2006 film The Break-Up, and “You’re The One,” and others.
He also performed “I Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye (Bang Bang Boom Boom),” a song he wrote for and recorded with Post Malone last year. He told the story of how the duet stemmed from their friendship, but nearly didn’t happen because Yoakam had finished recording Brighter Days three weeks before.
The concert continued with some of Yoakam’s most sentimental songs, such as “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” from his 1994 album This Time, and “Little Ways,” a song he wrote and released from his debut album in 1987. He also performed his debut single, a version of Johnny Horton’s “Honky Tonk Man” that launched his career in 1986, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard country charts.
The night ended with the rocking “Fast As You,” which got the crowd dancing. The song was groundbreaking when it was released in the mid-90s for its rock guitar solos and nearly five-minute running time, a rarity for a country radio single.
Anyone who loves neo-traditional country music needs to see Dwight Yoakam in concert. There are plenty of chances as the actor and musician tours casinos and amphitheaters through November.
