By Dave Parsons
Imagine if you will… You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension of sight and sound into a wonderous land where tickets to a country concert are free, parking is free, and it’s all at the gas station down the road…..Wait, what? Oh yeah, and there are free samplers being handed out and 2/$1.00 loaded hot dogs inside.
Such a place existed at 3 Western Pennsylvania Sheetz gas stations this summer, as the northern triad of gas/convenience/food chains sponsored ‘Truck Bed Sessions’ pop up concerts at random locations. (The southern two chains begin with a B and a W). From the name, you could derive it was the local country singer with their guitar, maybe standing in the bed of their truck in the parking lot.
Upon arriving at the second of these outings at a Sheetz in McKees Rocks, PA. there were plenty of folks to show you to the field behind the building to park, where to line up to go through security and scan your free tickets…..which were ‘sold out’ by the way…and to proceed into the zoned off part of the parking lot to see what they had setup and be offered all you could eat of fried food snacks.
Forget the ‘tailgate of a pickup for a stage’ theory. Sheetz had rolled a full-size tour bus into place, covered it with the concerts branding, and put a full-size flatbed stage down the side of the bus. Although they kept the name of the artist a secret until they took the stage, it was evident that they brought their entire band with them!!! The sound system was more than adequate cranking out the sounds of the country DJ.
To everyone’s delight, Nashville recording artist Brent Cobb was introduced as he and the band stepped out of the bus and onto the flat bed. Cobb was fresh off of opening shows for Luke Combs to thousands of fans a night. Having been a songwriter in Nashville for over a decade, penning songs for Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan Kellie Pickler, Kenny Chesney to name a few, as well as a half dozen CD releases, it did not take him long to win the crowd over.
Keep ‘Em on They Toes and Shut Up and Sing got the crowd into the evening, and they never looked back. With the front row standing within a few feet of his mic stand, Cobb seemed to be taking in the audience, and quite pleased they know the words to every song he is singing.
Before going into the title song of his latest CD, Southern Star, Cobb mused that he looked sideways at the offer to do this show. He said they figured they could fill the bus up with gas before heading down the road, but he added they were so happy they decided to do it as the crowd was making him feel so welcome.
A couple of other highlights, When Country Came Back to Town, got the crowd fired up, and Let the Rain Come Down, from Cobb’s grammy nominated CD Shine on Rainy Day, received great energy from the crowd. Cobb continued the parking lot party for nearly 90 minutes on a warm Wednesday evening. For it being a free show with no seating, no one seemed to be in a hurry to leave. It was a great combination, between the music, the price and the 2/$1.00 hot dogs.
Brent Cobb Show Setlist:
1 Keep ‘Em on They Toes
2 Shut Up and Sing
3 Morning’s Gonna Come
4 Sucker for a Good Time
5 Southern Star
6 Diggin’ Holes
7 Down in the Gulley
8 Ain’t a Road Too Long
9 Solving Problems
10 When Country Came Back to Town
11 Let the Rain Come Down
12 Black Creek
13 Livin’ the Dream
14 Soapbox
15 Black Crow
16 If I Don’t See Ya
17 .30-06
18 Richland
19 Bar, Guitar, and a Honky Tonk Crowd
