Published in the Quad-City Times on July 8, 2024

Country music is always wrestling with authenticity.

Real country and fake country have elusive definitions, but you know ’em when you see ’em. For the past decade, country’s radio identity crisis has played out over trap drumkits and bland vocalists selling Coors-branded coozies to frat guys. 

But country is cool again.

At least, that’s what Lainey Wilson declared by announcing her “Country’s Cool Again” tour this summer, in anticipation for her fourth record, “Whirlwind,” releasing in August. 

Her tour stopped Sunday at the John Deere Classic “Concerts on The Course” stage. And if Lainey Wilson is telling me that country is cool, damn it, I’m gonna believe her. 

Wilson is a golden goose as far as booking goes for the golf tournament’s concert series. She’s a year removed from winning the Grammy for Best Country Album and has songs all over the charts. She’s acting in the TV western “Yellowstone,” one of the biggest shows on the small screen.

Last weekend, she opened for The Rolling Stones at Soldier Field in Chicago. 

Her popularity showed with the turnout. The number of fans who stuck it out for the show easily doubled that of the Counting Crows set the day before.

The crowd backed up so much against the 18th hole hillside that a route had to be cleared for JDC champion Davis Thompson to walk through about 15 minutes before the show was scheduled to start. 

Wilson tour T-shirts were visible across the crowd. Navigating the walkways was, at times, a task. 

“Is that her?” one fan asked, minutes before the show began.

“No, I don’t see bell bottoms yet,” a friend answered. 

The latter pal had the right instinct. Wilson’s band took the stage first, playing softly along to “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool” by Barbara Mantrell. And when Wilson joined them, she strutted.

Dressed in kelly-green bell-bottom jeans, a studded belt and a matching green cropped vest, Wilson kicked her way up to the microphone with swagger. She spun circles for the VIP fans up front and opened with “Hang Tight Honey.” 

As with the previous shows on the course, the stage design was an irritant. Half a football field of space stood between Wilson and general-admission fans. But the Louisiana-born singer didn’t have any problem trying to reach across that canyon. 

“Y’all ready to have a damn good time?” she asked, the first of many, many, conversational moments with the crowd. “We’re gonna let our hair down! We’re gonna cut loose!” 

“Smell Like Smoke” was one of the first obvious hits of the night, a Bible-loving, rural-affirming, redneck riot where Wilson asserted her authenticity. 

“If I smell like smoke, it’s only ’cause I’ve been through hell,” she sang on the title lyric, tripling down on it for the last chorus as she fell to her knees. 

Coming off as real-deal-country clearly matters to Wilson. For many country stars, the noticeable effort would be off-putting. But that’s not quite the case with Wilson, a self-described fifth-generation farmer’s daughter who said she called her dad to tell him about the John Deere Classic gig. 

“Some of my favorite memories were in the cab of a tractor,” she said. “I fell in love with country music in the cab of a tractor.” 

Wilson’s brand of country is gravelly and guitar-forward. You’re just as likely to hear some tongue-in-cheek truck wordplay as you are a guitar solo.

The most obvious touchpoint for Wilson’s sound is Miranda Lambert, who made her first mark at outdoor shows like this one in the ’00s. On Sunday, Wilson played “Good Horses,” an unreleased collaboration with Lambert that will be on “Whirlwind.”

“Heart Like a Truck,” one of Wilson’s most popular tracks, was the easiest singalong of the day at the Classic, a crowd-pleaser for fans of all ages. But it was also probably the cheesiest, alongside Wilson’s other truck-themed single, “4x4xU,” released this week and played toward the end of the show.

Both songs come off like what you’d get if you fed an algorithm the recipe for country airplay. But something about Wilson is less grating than the Lukes and the Jasons and the Coles. 

Perhaps it’s because the 32-year-old’s engagement with fans comes off as genuine. Her southern drawl does, too.

She stopped to take selfies and sign autographs at any opportunity on Sunday. During “Atta Girl,” Wilson brought a young fan named Lainey on stage to serenade her and have her give self-affirmations. 

“I am beautiful, I am smart, I am talented,” the young Lainey declared to the crowd. 

Moments later, Wilson dubbed her Cowgirl of The Night.

It’s obvious that Wilson knows how to create special moments like this. The scene was serene during “Things a Man Oughta Know,” the singer’s first (and greatest) of her big hits.

The sun peeked through the navy clouds, creating a lovely contrast between the sharp greens of the golf course below. Rain started to fall as the song wrapped up and Wilson flexed her pipes, hanging onto the last lyric like an anthem singer at a Friday night football game might hang onto “brave.” 

The forming storm created an a-little-too-on-the-nose setting, though, for “Out of Oklahoma,” Wilson’s new song for the film “Twisters,” releasing later this month. By the time she finished “Live Off,” it turned to a downpour, and some fans headed for the exits. 

The rain ebbed and flowed for the rest of the set, coming down heavily once more as Wilson performed the popular single “Watermelon Moonshine.” But even as they left, fans couldn’t help but sing along. 

The loudest crowd response of the night came for an acoustic medley of Wilson’s A-list feature repertoire. Alone on stage with an acoustic guitar, she bled together her songs with Cole Swindell (“Never Say Never”), HARDY (“wait in the truck”) and Jelly Roll (“Save Me”). The latter, one of country’s biggest smashes of the last several years, was sung entirely by the fans at times on the back half. 

Wilson closed the night with “Wildflowers & Wild Horses,” a single from her 2022 record “Bell Bottom Country.”

The song best encapsulates what makes Wilson work as country’s next big thing — it’s got a Wrangler jeans partnership and songwriting with a lot more shelf life than any of the baby-you-a-songs of the last ten years. 

“I’ll dig my boots into the dirt and face the rollin’ thunder,” Wilson sang on the song’s second verse. 

On Sunday night, she did.