\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIf you looked at what George Strait brings to the table on a ledger, it would almost appear as if he\u2019s begging not<\/em> to be a stadium act. He\u2019s a country traditionalist whose music bears virtually no signs of having been touched by contemporary influences. He\u2019s also a non-raconteur who does fewer interviews than Beyonce, and not that much more talking to the audience in concert. His big screens have graphics that look like they were cooked up roughly around the time he was getting his start in the early \u201880s. He moves around on stage about as much as someone getting a CAT scan. Perhaps needless to add, he does not fly over the audience; the only thing being harnessed in his shows is some Lefty Frizzell energy.<\/p>\n \n\tBut was every seat sold for his appearance Saturday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood? You bet your Wrangler-endorsement-deal britches. What\u2019s more, quite unlike the audience for other performers in their 70s who\u2019ve passed through recently, the crowd skewed young; the median age might\u2019ve been half his age. It\u2019s not as if Haggard, Jones or Cash were ever headlining stadium shows in their advanced years for relative kids, so how is it that younger generations of fans have gotten the memo now that granddad-country trumps bro-country? There are probably a lot of factors to that, but among them, consider the idea that maybe his audience has been scared straight\u2026 scared Strait won\u2019t come around again.<\/p>\n \n\tThat is not an age thing, though \u2014 more of a self-imposed scarcity thing on the artist\u2019s part. Strait famously said some years back that he was retiring from the concert business, and then had the genius notion that maybe a half-dozen or so stadium shows every year constituted the kind of touring that he could live with. Saturday\u2019s show in Inglewood was his fifth gig of 2025, and the last scheduled for this year, barring any sudden developments. (And \u201csudden\u201d is not Strait\u2019s thing.) He also hasn\u2019t played in California at all since 2014, per reports. Strait treated it as if it were a routine gig, or at least didn\u2019t feel the need to sentimentalize the occasion with reminders to the audience of just how few opportunities like this he affords them. But most were acutely aware this was a rare opportunity\u2026 though you can\u2019t discount that others may live in more of a vaccum and just wanted to hear \u201cAll My Ex\u2019s Live in Texas\u201d live, as most rational humans would, afforded the chance.<\/p>\n \n\tIt can\u2019t be discounted that some part of the crowd might\u2019ve been at SoFi first and foremost to hear the middle-billed Chris Stapleton, who has been known to headline a stadium show or two himself, though he mostly keeps it to the arena circuit. As is typical for country shows at this level, the evening\u2019s lineup was packed to the point of gilding the lily, with a group as big as Little Big Town rounding out the bill in the opening slot. (At the previous four 2025 Strait dates, it was Parker McCollum in that position.) From start to finish, the triple-header had all three attractions doing full-length sets and lasted nearly six hours\u2026 putting the lie to the \u00a0lyrical maxim \u201cI ain\u2019t here for a long time,\u201d but without too many complainants, even if some of the seats started to empty out around the 11:00 hour, as babysitting bills accumulated and the threat of a midnight parking-lot jam loomed.<\/p>\n \n\tPerforming hours before sundown, Little Big Town\u2019s eternally flawless harmonic convergence captivated what there was of the still-getting-settled crowd, giving pop-country a good name with highlights ranging from their hit Taylor Swift cover \u201cBetter Man\u201d to the female-forward \u201cGirl Crush\u201d and \u201cDaughters.\u201d More of the house was in place by the time Stapleton fired up an hour-and-a-half set that had \u201cBroken Halos\u201d as its emotional climax, followed by \u201cTennessee Whiskey\u201d as its less emotive, good-time capper.<\/p>\n \n\tStapleton had a couple of special guests for his performance, albeit guests that he shared with the headliner, as both he and Strait invited both Miranda Lambert and Mike Campbell out for their respective performances. In Stapleton\u2019s case, the latter cameo was a natural because the guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and he have some good collaborative history together, including having co-written \u201cArkansas,\u201d one of two songs Campbell guested on; the other was Petty\u2019s \u201cI Should Have Known It,\u201d which Stapleton had covered on a country tribute album for the late rocker.<\/p>\n \n\tWith Lambert on site, she and Stapleton had the chance to give a live premiere to their joint new single, the upbeat love song \u201cA Song to Sing.\u201d Later, Lambert came out early in Strait\u2019s set in the night\u2019s first example of a guest\u2019s double-duty, singing the headliner\u2019s song \u201cRun\u201d with him (not to be confused with her own recent single of that name; too bad no one had the idea to make a medley of those). Their two-song duet spot continued with \u201cHow \u2018Bout Them Cowgirls,\u201d which obviously had been waiting for as vivid a living demonstration as a fellow Wrangler endorsee like Lambert could offer.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tGeorge Strait and Miranda Lambert in concert at SoFi Stadium, July 19, 2025<\/span> \n\tCampbell\u2019s part in Strait\u2019s set was one of the clear highlights of the night, involving a jammy cover of Petty\u2019s \u201cYou Wreck Me\u201d that included first a characteristic solo from the Heartbreaker, then further solo turns from further members of Strait\u2019s band \u2014 with many of those veteran accompanists smiling at the equally rocking licks his guitarist of 40 years, Rick McRae, was able to match Campbell\u2019s with. This was a song that Strait contributed himself to the country Petty salute, so not new territory for him, but it\u2019s still a surprise to hear someone who normally keeps it firmly on the country side turning into an arena-rock cowboy for the length of one song. (Unlike Alan Jackson, he doesn\u2019t take a firmer position against rocking the jukebox, even if it\u2019s not really his thing.)<\/p>\n \n\tAs he has on the previous dates on this not-quite-a-tour five-date itinerary, Stapleton himself joined Strait for three numbers, beginning with the 2003 hit \u201cCowboys Like Us\u201d and continuing through two Strait cuts that Stapleton co-wrote, \u201cHonky Tonk Hall of Fame\u201d and \u201cYou Don\u2019t Know What You\u2019re Missing.\u201d These offered proof of just how comfortable Stapleton is stepping into trad-country, even if his standard m.o. for his own albums tends toward bluesier things.<\/p>\n \n\tThe most hilarious moment of the evening came when Strait told Stapleton: \u201cYou are my hero.\u201d Maybe they did this routine on the earlier dates, but Stapleton seemed taken aback and offered the closest thing to a riposte one could under the circumstances: \u201cWell, you\u2019re mine.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHeroes of a non-musical stripe got their moment when a lengthy, moving slot was given over to a representative from the Military Warriors Support Foundation offering a house and complete furnishings to a veteran who was brought on stage, offering support for his PTSD and some relief for having had most of his belongings robbed. The courage of law enforcement officers was saluted, meanwhile, with Strait\u2019s rendition of his song \u201cThe Weight of the Badge,\u201d accompanied by footage of officers from the California Highway Patrol, LAPD, sheriff\u2019s department and Baldwin Park police department. Without any more controversial law enforcement deployment of late being invoked, Strait\u2019s straightforward ballad offered a moment in which Strait\u2019s Democratic and Republican fans might\u2019ve felt oddly sympatico, had they sussed each other out.<\/p>\n \n\tIntroducing \u201cI\u2019ll Always Remember You\u201d near the end of the night, Strait owned up to his fake-out retirement of the early 2010s, saying he had it in mind at the time \u201cthat I wouldn\u2019t be doing this too much longer. \u2026 I changed my mind in a hurry.\u201d At the very end, following the Townes Van Zandt-penned classic \u201cPancho & Lefty,\u201d Strait closed things out for real with another retirement-appropriate number \u2014 albeit one that dates back to 1984 \u2014 \u201cThe Cowboy Rides Away.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tGeorge Strait in concert at SoFi Stadium, July 19, 2025<\/span> \n\tWith a retirement plan like this \u2014 a handful of shows a year, all of them major events drawing fans from several states around \u2014 Strait is enjoying the most privileged, slowest ride into the sunset possible. But then, fans would maintain that the privilege of still having him kicking around is all theirs. Who else remains with this firm a link to a time when someone could come up raised on nothing but \u201cPure Country\u201d (to cite his 1992 feature film\u2019s title), with no hint of a modified trap beat or leering over back roads hotties in sight? Not that Strait should be credited only for what he doesn\u2019t<\/em> do \u2014 i.e., go crass on us \u2014 as much as what he did and still does: pick great songs, sing even better and exude a quiet, uncocky confidence that would make anyone feel patriotic about country as a genre. Artists like Zach Top may be coming up to fill that void, but they might not get very far without Strait still in the collective audience\u2019s consciousness as the most visible living wellspring for this music\u2019s better angels. <\/p>\n \n\tNot that it ever seems like a good idea to contradict a time-tested George Strait lyric, but: May he be here for a long time, as well as a good time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you looked at what George Strait brings to the table on a ledger, it would almost appear as if he\u2019s begging not to be a stadium act. He\u2019s a country traditionalist whose music bears virtually no signs of having been touched by contemporary influences. He\u2019s also a non-raconteur who does fewer interviews than Beyonce,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1620,3708,1072,1085,4878,4221,1599,1748,4877],"class_list":{"0":"post-11488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-brings","9":"tag-concert","10":"tag-george","11":"tag-review","12":"tag-sofi","13":"tag-sounds","14":"tag-stadium","15":"tag-strait","16":"tag-traditional"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChristopher Polk for Variety<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChristopher Polk for Variety<\/p>\n