Philadelphia’s Country Station, 92.5 XTU celebrated their 35th birthday this past weekend and they didn’t go lightly with their celebration as they brought Chris Young’s ‘Raised On Country’ tour and some special guests to Camden, New Jersey’s BB&T Pavilion for an evening incredible musicianship and hit country songs. Celebrating their 35th Birthday in style with Chris Young, Chris Janson, Dylan Scott, Walker Hayes, Cassadee Pope, Payton Taylor and Dylan Schneider for a full day of fun in the sun.
Launching the day with Interscope Records’ Dylan Schneider who gave the crowd an energy-filled set on the side stage on the Walt Whitman plaza side of the venue. Continuing with American Idol Season 2 alum, Payton Taylor who performed a fierce set that even included an amazing rendition of Reba’s “Fancy.” Both Schneider and Taylor had full band sets that the crowd adored and even knew a lot of their songs as they knocked their boots together dancing and singing along.
Cassadee Pope and Walker Hayes headlined the side stage before the start of the main stage show. Hayes and Pope both had acoustic sets, Walker by himself with an acoustic guitar interacting with the crowd as he performed especially during his performance of his fan favorite song “Dollar Store” and Pope performing with just a acoustic guitar and one other guitarist, also on acoustic guitar. Pope performed some of her biggest hits like “If My Heart Had A Heart,” “Take You Home” and of course she had a big sing-a-long with fans to what she said is her favorite song that she has ever written “Wasting All These Tears” but left out her Chris Young collaboration song “Think Of You” as she surprised fans later on in the night during Young’s set. Hayes’ closed out the side stage launching with “Dollar Store” in which fans held dollar bills up in the crowd that Hayes’ offered to sign for them later in the set. Hayes did not bring a set list with him and just went on what he felt like performing as well as taking some requests to perform which the crowd loved as his hand picked set list was better than he could have ever crafted prior to the show.
Launching the main stage at 7:30pm was Curb Records’ “My Girl” singer, Dylan Scott, who didn’t waste a single minute of his 30-minute set, which we wish would have been longer as his energy was infectious on stage not to mention the hits that he powered through even including a 90’s country blend including songs like “Dust On The Bottle,” “Fishin’ In The Dark,” “Check Yes or No,” and “When You Say Nothing At All.” Opening his set with the compelling “Hooked” which makes you want to dance but including a snippet of Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling” which made for the perfect mashup. Continuing his high-energy set with songs like “Nothing To Do Town,” “Honey I’m Home,” the piano-driven ballad “Nobody” in which Scott performed on the piano and of course ending his impeccable set with his first No. 1 single “My Girl” in which the crowd put on their own performance of the smash hit song.
Chris Janson demanding the fans attention next and sharing ‘Good Vibes’ with an explosive performance beginning with his redneck anthem, “Redneck Life” which came with a flawless harmonica solo from Janson. Janson brought along the Grand Ole Opry mic stand with him to stand center stage throughout his entire performance and that was a first for the Opry mic stand as Janson said “This is the Opry Mic stand making its New Jersey debut for the first time ever tonight.” Janson recently celebrated his 1 year anniversary as an Opry Member which made for a perfect reason to bring along a piece of Opry history to perform with. Jason powered through his 45 minute set with such high-energy it was a force to be reckoned with, especially when he performed a new song from his forthcoming new album which was an incredible new song and we cannot wait for it to be released. Janson even performed a cover of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” which was complete with him playing keyboard and playing the harmonica solos throughout the song before going into the song that won him his first ACM Award just a few months ago, “Drunk Girl.” Janson is truly a talent that grasps your attention during his live show with the high energy, hit songs, and his multi-instrumentalist talents including harmonica, keyboards and even drums. Janson ended his set with a sing-a-long to “Buy Me A Boat” which fans sang every word back to him throughout the song.
After a brief Chris Young Dance cam panned around the crowd capturing the sold out crowds best dance moves to some of country music’s greatest hits on what they called the ‘CY Dance Cam.’ It was finally, the time everyone was waiting for the Multi-Platinum country hitmaker, Chris Young, who exploded onto the massive stage from behind his huge video wall that filled the entire length of the background on stage with a guitar to a fan-favorite hit song “Hangin’ On.” Bringing along a massive production on this ‘Raised On Country World Tour,’ complete with vibrant, moving lighting rigs and huge video walls that had the perfect visual to accompany each song.
Young brought a 90-minute, 19-song set to Camden, NJ that was full of hit songs like “Losing Sleep,” “Sober Saturday Night” and so many more not to mention the massive sing-a-long that came with his smash hit “I’m Comin’ Over” and his Cassadee Pope collaborative single “Think Of You” in which Pope joined him on stage to perform a flawless version of the song. We really enjoyed the moment where some of today’s hottest country stars (Kane Brown, Brett Young, Florida Georgia Line, Brad Paisley, Lauren Alaina and more) appeared on a video montage telling the at capacity crowd what type of country they were raised on before Young played his fifteenth Top 10 hit, “Raised On Country.” Fans really got emotional when Young performed his song “Drowning” in which the crowd illuminated Young with their phone lights, looking like a bunch of sparkling stars in a dark sky.
This particular show marked Young’s biggest headlining show ever in his career, telling the crowd “this is officially the most tickets that I’ve ever sold at a concert and that means so damn much to me, thank you.” Young selling over 21.5k tickets at this show alone, and the crowd showed him the time of his life while he was performing an impeccable show as they roared along to each and every song.
Young and his band have a very good onstage musicianship, interacting together and with fans throughout their entire set which we really enjoy from any artists live show. Make sure you get out and see Young on his ‘Raised On Country World Tour’ which he is currently embarking on, for a list of tour dates and tickets please check out his website, HERE.
Check out our gallery from the show below:
