Live Review: Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Scotiabank Place, Ottawa, ON, June 28, 2007

My summer concert season began on Wednesday night when my wife and I went to see Mr. and Mrs. Tim McGraw at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa.

The show started at 7:30 with a brief set by the pleasant singer/songwriter Lori McKenna, who wouldn't have been a bit out of place on a Lilith Fair tour. Not 10 minutes later, Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9", better known as the tune which starts off with the lyric "welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends" came blasting out of the sound system. Tim and Faith then emerged from beneath the stage, starting off with a duet on Snow Patrol's "Counting Cars" before doing a couple of other tracks together which quite frankly demonstrated just how much more superior Faith is than her husband when it comes to carrying a tune.

He then disappeared and she delivered an hour-long set that was full of hits ranging back to her first album along with a cover of Abba’s “The Winner Takes It All”. Much to her chagrin, this wasn’t enough to get the adult contemporary/soft rock fans in the audience out of their seats although she tried her best with lots of waves and high-fives to the front row. I’m sure if she was less strictly a vocalist and more of an entertainer, things would have been more to her liking, and although her undeniably powerful voice was crystal clear on this night, Shania Faith ain’t when it comes to putting on a show.

Things changed when McGraw showed up once again and they did a couple more duets prior to him launching into the Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker”. Then, more hits from McGraw were delivered with a handful of tunes from his new disc, “Let It Go”, which sounded a hell of a lot better live than they do on record, that’s for sure. Judging from the audience reaction, this was a Tim crowd, and he was really hamming it up. I had to wonder why the guy is so cocky (leaving his knockout wife aside, of course), as he had as much bravado on stage as both Bono and Jon Bon Jovi, two frontmen I've previously seen in concert who at least know how to pen a tune (something McGraw can’t claim). The fiddle and pedal steel were also much more up front with Tim than with Faith, which I appreciated.

After he delivered a set of comparable length to his wife's, she appeared once again and they did an encore which included a kick-ass version of Bryan Adams and Tina Turner’s “It’s Only Love” with both of their backing bands, during which the above picture was taken, returning for a final tune titled “I Need You” which was an achingly beautiful way to end the show.

At 3.5 hours long, this show was totally worth the $120 ticket price, even if some of my favourite McGraw tracks like "Drugs or Jesus", "Take Me Away From Here" and "Angel Boy" and were omitted from the set list, which you can find here.

Overall rating: 9/10