Entertaining Kid Rock shows off talents, but MAGA message loud and clear in Fort Worth
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Kid Rock brought his “No Snowflakes” summer tour to Dickies Arena Saturday night.
It is an appropriate warning for anyone who blushes easily at obscenities.
Rock, who turned 52 in January, ripped through a 17-song, one-hour, 45-minute show filled with more four-letter words than a barbershop conversation between Redd Foxx, Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor.
Most came in lyrical flurries throughout the set, which included four songs each from his 2022 release “Bad Reputation,” and his 1998 breakthrough album “Devil Without A Cause.”
This was the second stop of a seven-date tour, an abbreviated version of his 2022 tour that took him to Dallas’ Dos Equis Pavilion 364 days earlier. The album and the performance are Rock’s full-throated embrace of the MAGA culture created and cultivated by former president Donald Trump, of whom Rock is an outspoken and proud supporter.
In fact, before Rock’s main-set finale, a video message from Trump extolled Rock’s greatness as an entertainer to the crowd of about 11,000. The arena was mostly full, but plenty of seats were empty.
For all of the pseudo-political posturing, red-meat patriotism, and the “they can all go to hell!” sentiment expressed in his lyrics and in the video images displayed behind the stage, Rock has one thing you can’t fake: entertainment value.
He and his eight-piece band — including three guitarists, a bassist, a DJ, a percussionist, a drummer, and a keyboardist/pianist, plus three backup singers and two pole dancers — had fans dancing and singing along from the jump.
His band and backup singers provided a sturdy smooth and dynamic sound that helped complement Rock’s singing style, whether he was spitting out rapid-fire rap lines in the show-opening “Devil Without a Cause,” singing melodically on “Picture,” the 2002 hit duet he wrote with Sheryl Crow, or singing with a slight country twang on “All Summer Long,” his 2008 mash-up of Bob Seger’s “Night Moves,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.”
Early in the show, Rock reminisced about going to rock shows as a kid, and tried to convey the sense of community he felt at those shows.
“You remember those days,” he said. “For you youngsters, we’ll try to give you a little taste of what that was like. I know for you young ones this is going to be very, very difficult and a big ask, but I just need you to put your cell phones down for 20 seconds and give me your hands.”
Rock got his arm-waving moment during “Bad Reputation,” but it wasn’t long before phones in the hands of all ages were out again.
Rock kept his political messages contained within the songs and the accompanying video images, most blatantly expressed during “Don’t Tell Me How To Live” and “We the People” two biting tracks that attack COVID-19 restrictions, social media trolls, liberal politicians and the media.
As he ramped up “Don’t Tell Me How To Live,” images of Bud Light and Target were shown on the screen, harkening to Rock’s viral video in April that showed him shooting up a case of Bud Light to protest Anheuser-Busch using transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney in a promotion.
Anheuser-Busch, by the way, is Dickies Arena’s sponsored beer partner and there were plenty served during the show. The arena was also selling a Kid Rock-specific drink made with Texas whiskey, lemonade, peach schnapps, and Pepsi. Those imbibing were drinking everything in — the alcohol and Rock’s political theatrics — and loving all of it.
Rock often wants it both ways, however, or gives mixed messages. Take “We the People,” for example. He sings “But we gotta keep fighting for the right to be free,
And every human being doesn’t have to agree,
We all bleed red, brother, listen to me, It’s time for love and unity.”
The hippie sentiment, repeated in different ways throughout the song, is undermined by a juvenile chorus of “Let’s Go Brandon,” a political slogan used as an obscene coded critique of President Joe Biden.
Music, however, can be a unifying endeavor, especially at an arena-filled rock show with pyrotechnics, red, white, and blue lasers, and confetti streams.
And Rock provided that communal feeling of good grooves with a let-it-all hang-out vibe, wearing blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and an assortment of different hats, including a bucket hat, baseball cap and cowboy hat.
He showed off his multi-instrument talents at various moments during the set. He blew the saxophone on “Bad Reputation,” sat behind the drum kit for a quick jam, strapped on a guitar for “So Hott Blues” and “Rockin’,” scratched records, and played piano on “Born Free,” one of the emotional high points of the evening. It included a video introduction with Rock’s voice-over paying tribute to American military personnel and later included moving images of soldiers reuniting with family members.
Rock could be accused (and surely has been) of using members of our armed forces to emotionally manipulate his audience. Even if that’s true, his respect and support for their service felt genuine.
For all of his boastful shenanigans, Rock comes off as an authentic, self-made artist who appreciates his success. Much of his music might be derivative, but what contemporary rock music isn’t derivative of something? Rock just relishes celebrating those connections more than most.
If you could get through the onslaught of F-bombs, the connection between artist and fan was there to be had Saturday night.
Kid Rock setlist, Dickies Arena, Fort Worth, Texas, June 24, 2023
Devil Without a Cause (Back in Black)
You Never Met a [expletive] Quite Like Me/American Bad Ass/Cocky
All Summer Long
First Kiss
Don’t Tell Me How to Live
Cowboy
Wasting Time
Bad Reputation
Picture
3 Sheets to the Wind (What’s My Name)/So Hott Blues
Rock n Roll Jesus
Only God Knows Why
Born Free
We the People
Rockin’
Bawitdaba
Shake, Rattle, and Roll
