Concert Reviews

George Strait and Chris Stapleton fired on all cylinders in their performance at Gillette Stadium on Saturday.

It is that smile. When George Strait sauntered on stage at Gillette Stadium Saturday to “Deep in the Heart of Texas” for the latest stop in his Stadium Tour with Chris Stapleton, the energy shifted. He smiled that smile that has more wattage than the light show that would accentuate his act, a breeze fluttered across the steamy packed house that rose to its feet and erupted in cheers to welcome the king, the King of Country Music.

What can you say about George Strait that hasn’t already been said? He’s not only the king, he’s a legend. His easy-going classic country charm is as big as his beloved Texas. His career spans more than three decades, includes 60 No. 1 singles, 33 platinum albums, and dozens upon dozens of awards. And Saturday night, he showed why. He’s a cowboy, and between his songs and the montage that accompanied much of his music, he makes you a little wistful and wonder, why aren’t you a cowboy too? 

Wearing his trademark buttoned down long sleeved shirt, black hat and jeans with what one can only assume is a rodeo belt buckle (slightly smaller than a WWE championship belt), Strait played a 90-plus minute show ping ponging back and forth between his classic hits and newer songs off his 2024 album “Cowboys and Dreamers.” And when he was called back for an encore he could have simply done “All My Exes Live in Texas” and been played off with “The Cowboy Rides Away” one of his most fun songs and the latter his swan song that wasn’t really a swan song from his 1984 album “Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind.” But he didn’t. He did five songs. Five!

Have I mentioned that Strait is 73 years old? 

I know people who are 43 years old, and if they go out at all, they want to be home and quite possibly in bed by 9:30 p.m. He was taking the stage at 9:30. Get off your couch for crying out loud!

Strait hit the stage with “Twang,” a fun song from his 26th studio album by the same name and sailed right into a fan favorite, “Check Yes or No,” off his 1995 “Strait Out of the Box” album. He ticked off “Run,” “How ‘bout them Cowgirls,” and the brutal, “I can Still Make Cheyenne” before pivoting back to fun town with the always raucous  (“I’m not here for a long time, I’m) “Here for a Good Time,” a Jimmy Buffet-esque anthem that got everyone up and singing. 

Backed by the crew he once sang lead for, the Ace in the Hole Band includes a few legends of its own, like Rick Mae on lead guitar. He might look like your grandpa, but his trio isn’t called The Riff Ryders for nothing, and Mike Daily has been weaving his lonesome pedal steel sound through Strait’s songs since the 1970s.

Strait told the crowd, in that easy, unaffected manner he wears like a cowboy hat, that he had a lot of music to get through and he hoped we didn’t have anywhere to be. He also said he had something special planned. When Strait performed the solemnly sincere “Weight of the Badge” dedicated to first responders and included snapshots of Foxborough’s own police, firefighters, and EMTs along with Massachusetts State Police officers, you might have thought that was the something special.

When Chris Stapleton joined him on stage for a sentimental nod to steel horses with “Cowboys Like Us,” “You Don’t Know What You’re Missing,” a song he wrote and the terrifically fun “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame,” you might have thought that was the something special. Stapleton’s throaty rasp melds wonderfully with Strait’s smooth Texas drawl, making them a better-than-average duet. 

But the something special turned out to be a free home for veteran and Purple Heart recipient former U.S. Army Specialist Aaron Hart. Strait partners with the Military Warriors Support Foundation, which has given 162 mortgage-free homes to wounded veterans. 

Long about 10:30, Strait asked the crowd if they were tired. When a collective no went up he said, “good, me neither and I got a few more songs for you.” Did I mention he is 73?

Looking cool as a cucumber on the sticky first night of summer, Strait swung easily through the sweet, “I Saw God Today,” “The Chair,” “Every Little Honky Tonk” (which he wrote with his son Bubba) and another new song with a Buffet vibe, “MIA in MIA.”

And he could have ended with “I’ll Always Remember You,” a love letter to his fans and a respectable way to go out but he didn’t.

He brought the crowd up cheering and singing and swaying with a cover of Waylon Jennings’s “Lukenbach Texas,” and was greeted with a collective sigh when he sang his classic (and he admitted, his favorite) “Amarillo By Morning.” That song also lit up the stadium, but not with a bobbing cell phone light tribute (the modern day cigarette lighter), but with video screens as it seemed half the crowd recorded him.

He wrapped up the show with the autobiographical “Troubadour” and “Unwound” before strolling back on stage for “Condigo,” a fun little ditty he wrote for the Tequila company he’s involved with the wildly popular “All My Exes,” the Willie Nelson Merle Haggard tune “Pancho and Lefty,” “Take me Back to Tulsa” and finally, appropriately, “The Cowboy Rides Away.”

Saturday’s gig was actually a triple lineup of country powerhouses. It kicked off with Parker McCollum, and while most seemed to be at the show primarily for Strait, Stapleton was the first runner-up you’d be happy to see take the crown if the need arose. 

When he took the stage on his own, Stapleton, in his trademark Charlie 1 Horse hat with the turquoise stone and feathers,  got right down to the business of rocking Gillette Stadium with “Bad as I Used to Be” off the soundtrack of “F1,” a movie based on the Formula One world championship opening June 27. He said up top he wasn’t going to waste much time talking because he wanted to squeeze as many songs in as possible before Strait hit the stage. He managed 19 including “Midnight Train to Memphis,” his hits “Millionaire,” and “Broken Halos,” all off his 2017 “From a Room: Volume 2” album, the raucous “Arkansas,” the gentle “It Takes a Woman” and the sultry “You Should probably Leave.” When he sang fan favorites, “White Horses,” “Starting Over” and of course “Tennessee Whiskey,” Morgane Stapleton (his wife) was not his only backup singer. 

Stapleton is as intense as Strait is laid back. He is a loud, hard-playing dude who is as much fun to watch shred his guitar as it is to hear him sing. His band is seamless, tight, and Saturday firing on all cylinders, but his marquee is that voice. It is in some ways as smooth as the Tennessee whisky he sings about and yet gritty and sultry at the same time. The way he sings “baby” at the start of “I Think I’m in Love With You,” off his 2023 “Higher” album, just sums it all up. When he landed on “Nobody to Blame,” off his 2015 Traveler album, the sun had yet to go down, the early evening was smoldering, and so was he. He is simply an unassuming joy to watch.

McCollum, who traded a cowboy hat for a white “Fresh Western” trucker’s hat, fit right in with Stapleton and Strait. While he brought the crowd to its feet with his 2023 hits, “Handle on You,” and “Burn it Down” off his “Never Enough” album, he proved he was enough after sharing several new songs off his self-titled album, which will be released June 27. McCollum played “Hope that I’m Enough,” “Killing Me” and “Big Sky,” the latter, which feels like a hit. The song has something familiar about it, in a good way. Not in a been-there-done-that way, however, it is reminiscent of his “Limestone Kid” days, McCollum’s first album, which turned 10 in February.  The connection was easy to make when he reached back to his first album for “Meet You in the Middle.”

He also reached back to 2017’s “Probably Wrong” album when he pulled out the tear-jerker “Hell of a Year,” and “I Can’t Breath.” 

McCollum called Saturday’s show, his last with the tour, the perfect kick off to the summer on what was the first official day of summer. He wasn’t wrong. It was an excellent way to spend the longest day of the year. Now all we need is a little Condigo! 

George Strait set list

Twang

Check Yes or No

Run

How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls

I Can Still Make Cheyenne

Here for a Good Time

Three Drinks Behind

Waymore’s Blues

(Waylon Jennings cover)

The Weight of the Badge

The Little Things

Ocean Front Property

Cowboys Like Us

(with Chris Stapleton)

You Don’t Know What You’re Missing

(with Chris Stapleton)

Honky Tonk Hall of Fame

(with Chris Stapleton)

I Saw God Today

The Fireman

The Chair

Every Little Honky Tonk Bar

MIA Down in MIA

I’ll Always Remember You

Give It Away

(Bill Anderson cover)

Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)

(Waylon Jennings cover)

Amarillo by Morning

(Terry Stafford cover)

Troubadour

Unwound

Encore:

Codigo

All My Ex’s Live in Texas

Pancho & Lefty

(Townes Van Zandt cover)

Take Me to Texas

The Cowboy Rides Away

Chris Stevens

Chris Stevens is a freelance concert reviewer for Boston.com.

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