Tim McGraw, Carly Pearce and Abby Anderson @ KeyBank Center, Buffalo, NY 5-4-24

Country superstar Tim McGraw, Grammy award winner Carly Pearce and upcomer Abby Anderson played to a near capacity crowd this past Saturday night at the KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo. The tour was dubbed the Standing Room Only tour. With the tour already been going on for well over a month and half, each artist should be worked in and ready to deliver for the fans of Buffalo.

Up first was newcomer Abby Anderson. She just released her newest single “If You Killed Somebody” the day before. She was all smiles and filled with exuberant jubilation taking the KeyBank Center stage. It was just her and an acoustic guitar player that played a 4 song set. Besides the aforementioned song, she also played “Bright Side of Blue,” “Reason I Stay” and “Hearts on Fire in Mexico.” She sang acapella and behind her keyboards too. I thought she won over the crowd as they liked her sweet sincerity of how she delivered her songs.

Next up was Cary Pearce. It’s a been a little over a year since Pearce was in Buffalo as she opened up for Blake Shelton in March 0f 2023. She is getting ready to unleash her 4th studio effort titled ‘Hummingbird’ on June 7th. Her hour long set consisted of 12 songs. She had a big stage production for being an opener. She went back and forth between her trusty acoustic guitar and singing acapella as well. She also used the thrust and worked all the areas of the stage between her opening track “Diamondback” to her last song of the evening in “I Hope Your Happy Now.” 2 new songs were performed off the upcoming album in “We Don’t Fight Anymore” and “County Made Me Do It.” Overall, it was a very strong set by Pearce and it will be interesting to see if her next step would be headlining arenas herself.

Headlining the show was Tim McGraw. He is currently on tour supporting his 16th studio effort in ‘Standing Room Only.” There hasn’t much McGraw hasn’t seen or done since his first record ‘Tim McGraw’ which was released 30 years ago. He is married to another country superstar in Faith Hill. McGraw has done a few tours with Hill over the last decade while touring solo and releasing his own material as well. The band started playing the beginning of “Truck Yeah” as McGraw arrived from beneath the stage in a bellow of smoke. McGraw talked about how his life is surrounded by beautiful women inside and out. He went on to say even though he has a wife and 3 girls, he is used to no one listening to him (as the crowd responded in laughter). He dedicated the next song “Just to See You Smile” to them. McGraw went on to say that he is dedicating the new single “One Bad Habit” to all the guys in the house. McGraw stated, “If you have a real good woman like I do, then you will understand this song.” These weren’t the only times where his wife was mentioned as there was video of her in the background playing as the song “Watch the Wind Blow By” was played. The fiddle driven “Where the Grass Grows” brought a good response. One of the best responses though was when “I Like, I Love It” was played. The crowd participated by signing and dancing as the video panned on various parts of the crowd throughout. Another big response was when Taylor Swift was shown on the video screen signing along to the chorus of “Highway Don’t Care.” Besides all of this, there were plenty of lasers and a massive video screen that went from one side of the stage to the other. It should be noted that at age 57, McGraw is cut and physically fit, maybe more than ever.

One of the better spring weather days in Buffalo in some time, complimented a terrific triple bill of country music. The two matched together to make for a wonderful night of music in downtown Buffalo!

Setlist:

Truck Yeah

Southern Voice

All I Want is a Life

Tiny Dancer (Elton John cover)

Just to See You Smile

Over and Over/Shotgun Rider

One Bad Habit

Watch the Wind Blow By

Something Like That

Where the Green Grass Grows

Standing Room Only