November 15, 2024

Kane Brown – Spark Arena: November 14, 2024 (13th Floor Concert Review)

Kane Brown brought his In The Air Tour to Auckland with Kameron Marlowe and Kaylee Bell along for the ride.

Country music fandom is growing in New Zealand with recent shows by Luke Combs and Brad Paisley doing very well in recent times. In fact, Combs is due back in Auckland to play at Eden Park in January.

I arrived just before 7pm last night so as not to miss local favourite Kaylee Bell, and it looked like ticket sales were slower than those previous shows despite the fact that the line-up is formidable.

Kaylee headlined at The Powerstation earlier this year, while Kameron Marlowe ‘s single Steady Heart has been certified gold in the US and he scored over 15 million stream with his 2020 song, Giving You Up.

Meanwhile our headliner was named “the future of Country music” by Billboard Magazine after his debut album went 3x platinum in 2016. Since then he has sold almost 4 million records worldwide and was recently named country champion at the 2024 People’s Choice Country Awards.

So, plenty of accolades all around…let’s see what they got for us on the night…

Kaylee Bell

Kaylee Bell is a well-known quantity in these parts and she and her band delivered a solid set that rocked hard.

The sound mix was a little muddy during the opening song, Take It To The Highway, but soon, the guitar made itself heard and all was good, with the early attenders singing and clapping along by the end of the first tune.

“It’s my job to warm you up,” she announced. And that’s just what she did with a 30-minte set that rocked harder than the Coldplay show I had witnessed the previous evening and featured brand new single Cowboy Up.

That seems to be the state of Country Music these days.

Kameron Marlowe

When Kameron Marlowe and his band took over, they rocked even harder and louder.

Kameron Marlowe Marlowe is a good ‘ol boy from Kannapolis, North Carolina who sings about cowboys, whiskey and women…now that’s Country Music! A crowd favourite was his cover of Teddy Swims’ Lose Control. And I can’t help think that Ronnie Van Zant was smiling down on the stage as the dual guitars wailed away.

Kane Brown is a multi-racial (black/white/Native American) artist who makes music as diverse as his genealogy. He is living proof that people need to be taken for who they are as individuals rather than what they look like or where they were born.

Brown’s music is as much rock & roll and rhythm & blue as it its Country and Western. So rather than try to pigeonhole it, just listen to it.

Kane’s set began dramatically with a ominous-sounding prelude that turned into a dramatic Bury Me In Georgia. Smoke rose from the stage as the artist made his entrance.

Tonight’s production rivalled the bombast of Coldplay’s stadium show, featuring shooting flames, lasers and other pyrotechnics.

After the one-two-three classic rock punch of Bury Me In Georgia/One Thing Right and What Ifs, Kane got personal with his autobiographical Grand followed by I Can Feel It which eventually broke into Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight.

Kane Brown

Classic Rock never seems to be far away!

The crowd was stompin’ and singin’ along to Fiddle In The Band and then Brown brought the vibe down with his heart-warming Backseat Driver…about his kids…and Homesick…about, well, being homesick.

Kane then kicked away the stool he was sitting on and brought the energy back up with Good As You and Miles On It as lasers bounced off the Spark ceiling.

Things started to get a bit emotional again with Thank God and Heaven, but the set ended with guitars wailing once more during Like I Love Country Music.

Spark Arena never filled up completely, but those of us who were there saw and felt a show that indeed could indicate “the future of Country Music”…or rock & roll for that matter.

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Azrie

Kane Brown: