“I hope it’s OK with y’all if I drink while I work,” Blake Shelton declared to a Thursday night sold-out Houston Rodeo crowd of 75,016, just shy of teenybopper sensation Ariana Grandes’ attendance record a couple of nights earlier. One thing was for sure: The Voice star with a killer smile and high-wattage personality was up for a good time — and so were his fans.
Standing at 6-feet, 5-inches, Shelton towered over his band on the rodeo stage in a denim-on-denim Canadian tuxedo get up. He plowed through 15 songs without missing a beat, but with a whole lot of sweat.
I never really considered myself to be a big Blake Shelton fan, but he has so many radio hits I recognized all the songs he played. He opened the show with one of his more recent tracks “Neon Light” and then went straight into another upbeat classic, “All About Tonight.”
He took some time to point out that even though this was his fifth year in a row to grace the Rodeo Houston stage, he still gets “nervous as crap” under all the lights. He called out all the disgruntled boyfriends who were less then enthused to spend their Thursday with "Mr. Miranda Lambert," but thanked them for coming, segueing into one of his more cheesy hits, “Doing What She Likes.”
Though the crowd loved every song, Shelton got the biggest roar when he brought up his hit TV show. He complimented all the other artists and judges with the exception of co-star Adam Levine, who he lovingly referred to as a “douchebag.”
Voice alum Gwen Sebastian served a backup singer and did a duet with Shelton, "My Eyes." Sebastian also recently performed with Miranda Lambert at a Rodeo concert last week, where the duo debuted matching tattoos.
“You can’t play Rodeo Houston without a drinking song,” Shelton proclaimed, Solo cup in hand, as he belted out “The More I Drink.” A lot of his songs veer dangerously close to country clichés, but by the end of the night I couldn’t resist singing along to the popular chorus of "red-red-red-red-red-red-red-red-redneck" from his closer, "Boys 'Round Here."
Set List:
1. Neon Light
2. All About Tonight
3. Doing What She Likes
4. Mine Would Be You
5. He More I Drink
6. Old Red
7. Hillbilly Bone
8. Sure Be Cool if You Did
9. My Eyes
10. Lonely Tonight
11. Austin
12. Honey Bee
13. God Gave Me You
14. Footloose
15. Boys ‘Round Here
All Blake Shelton had to do was flash his killer smile and the big Rodeo crowd roared.
