Smith opening for Urban tonight

Dallas Smith is at his tip tip tippin’ point for missing out on the Prince George fun. He’s coming back to perform his power country tonight at CN Centre.

He and Maren Morris are the opening acts on Keith Urban’s nationwide tour.

Smith’s new album dropped last week and he is reaching strong numbers of people on the Keith Urban junket. He has his own cross Canada tour in the planning stages.

His video for the single Cheap Seats even won a Canadian Country Music Award this past weekend for director Stephano Barberis (the fourth time the duo has struck CCMA gold).

Dallas Smith is riding a mighty wave right now in Canada’s country music circles.

He’s at a stage in his career, with best selling singles and award winning albums coming out since 2012, where a slot as a guest artist allows little time for all the stuff his fans want to hear. That’s why he is setting out to tour the country http://www.cheapjerseys11.com/ again so soon after the Urban cheap jerseys trip is complete.

“There was a day when we saw a 90 minute set on the contract and we would kinda cringe and go OK, what covers are we going to play? What are we going to do?” he told The Citizen prior to his show in Prince George.

“But now when we see 90 minutes we say great, now we can go deep into these records and play some of the songs we don’t normally get to play (as an opening act). We are a point where 70 minutes to 90 minutes allows us to give a well rounded set.”

His albums include Jumped Right In, Lifted, Side Effects and a couple of EPs as well. The singles now number more than a dozen, some of the biggest chart titles including Wastin’ Gas, One Little Kiss, Lifted, Somebody Somewhere, Kids With Cars and the aforementioned Tippin’ Point and Cheap Seats.

Along the way he picked up an immensely important Juno Award for Country Album of the Year (Lifted, 2015) plus trophies from the CCMAs, Sirius XM Indie Awards, and BC Country Music Awards. Add that to the Juno success he had with his rock band Default before they halted operations.

The experience he gathered as the frontman of that highly successful band helps him in the studio and on the stage, but he really had to start from square one when he went solo and it was back at his roots in the country world. What he carried forward most, though, was his unmistakable and critically acclaimed voice. He packs a powerful punch.

It was hearing Dierks Bentley and, honestly, Keith Urban that convinced him his boyhood favourite genre had a place for his big, expressive singing voice and the driving guitars and drums to which he had become accustomed in Default.

“I can’t name another genre where there are artists like Zac Brown that are completely traditional to the Florida Georgia Lines of the world that are very pop. There are so many different sounds and influences within country radio,” he said.

He agrees that there is a valid argument over what constitutes true country music anymore.

Some say it has veered too far away from its own foundational sounds, that the influences of rock and R were once complementary sounds that have co opted the industry.

However, he said, the reality of country music is more nuanced than a simple yes or no discussion can accommodate.

He is in the position of seeing fans in large numbers on an almost daily basis, and they are hungry for all those flavours. The engagement level of the modern country fan is higher and more flexible than what any other genre presently has, he said.

“What’s good for live music and what’s good for the Canadian music scene is really important, and country is waving that flag and it’s really good to see,” said Smith.

Even though he has only been a full time country artist for the past five years or so, even he has responded to the lessons of the fans and the industry professionals who help him build his sound.

“We work with a great camp,” he said of his composition, production and marketing teams.

“It’s about making a more dynamic record as a whole. Looking back, I think Jumped Right In was a little linear, sonically, and we could have been more creative. That’s what we achieved with Lifted and now we’re going even further down that road.”

The road has some pullouts, and Prince George is one of them tonight. It will be the second time in the past couple of years that Smith has played CN Centre as a feature guest.

The first was on Florida Georgia Line’s last tour. Smith said it was a memorable night because his lead guitar player, Jer Breaks, got an ovation so loud it almost outclassed the roar for the headliners, and he expects the same thing tonight.

Breaks is a Prince George boy and Smith is already grinning about his buddy getting that strong feedback in his hometown.

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