The newly minted Grand Casino Arena in downtown St. Paul hosted its first live event Saturday night when about 12,000 fans showed up to see country star Jason Aldean.
Somehow, it was Aldean’s first arena show in the metro since he headlined the former Xcel Energy Center back in 2014. In the interim, he played a pair of Target Field shows with Kenny Chesney in 2015, Treasure Island Casino in 2023 and the Winstock Country Music Festival last summer. (He was booked to play the X in March 2020, the week when everything shut down due to the pandemic.)
The most notable difference in Saturday’s show was Aldean doubling down on his commitment to conservative causes. His wife Brittany’s anti-trans comments in 2022 led to Aldean’s longtime public relations firm dropping him as a client and his controversial 2023 single “Try That in a Small Town” was criticized by some as an endorsement of racism and political violence.
For his current tour, Aldean partnered with Patriot Mobile, a company that bills itself as “America’s ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider” whose “mission is to defend our God given rights and freedoms.” Immediately after Aldean’s second opening act Nate Smith’s performance, Aldean popped up on the screens to shill for the company in a prerecorded ad. Then his DJ gave Patriot Mobile a shout-out and launched into a set that mixed the likes of Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” with “Y.M.C.A.” and “Sweet Caroline.”
Judging by Aldean’s unimpressive stage, that Patriot Mobile money doesn’t go far. The stripped-down affair didn’t offer much in the way of flash and featured some of the smallest big screens in the business. That said, the well-lubricated crowd seemed perfectly happy to sing along and sway to Aldean’s many hits while spilling beers on each other. (Late in the show, Aldean noted that the crowd likely started drinking shots with their Eggo waffles for breakfast.)
Aldean has never had a particularly distinct voice. But he’s never pushed it too far, either, so his pipes have largely held up in the 20 years he’s been recording and touring. As he mentioned from the stage, he has a lot of albums and a lot of hits and he tore through 21 of them in a zippy 90-minute performance that rarely took time for a breath, let alone for a song that everyone in the arena didn’t know by heart.
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He opened with his debut single and signature song, “Hicktown,” with the guitars cranked up to late-’80s Motley Crue levels. From there, he rolled out his biggest smashes, including “Burnin’ it Down,” “Crazy Town,” “Dirt Road Anthem,” “My Kinda Party” and his most recent hit, “Whiskey Drink.” Even his slow songs like “You Make it Easy” are old-school arena-ready power ballads. Indeed, the spirit of throwback pop metal lingered throughout Aldean’s set, right down to his faux vintage Def Leppard T-shirt.
Aldean is a true pro when it comes to giving country audiences what they want, and Saturday night he did just that.
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