By Dave Parsons
Rising country star Trey Lewis came from out of nowhere in 2020, with an ornery song about his cheating girlfriend, called Dicked Down in Dallas. Overnight, the song went viral, was Number One on iTunes, and had more than 100 million streams. Suddenly, Lewis was a nationwide force in country music. The follow up release Single Again, was successful as well. Meantime, Lewis has already been on the road for 12 years before this ‘overnight’ success happened.
It was with these credentials that Lewis rolled into Warrendale, PA and setup for a concert at Jergels Rhythm Grille. The Thursday night crowd started coming in about 30 minutes before the opener started, and by the time Lewis hit the stage, the crowd had grown about 4-fold.
Lewis opened the show with Coulda Been Me from his latest CD called Troublemaker, and followed it with Single Again. He took a few seconds to welcome the crowd, and assure them he would be doing the song they all came to hear, but after he and the band played a great set of songs for them.
He also said he was going to premiere the answer to the big hit, a song called Scared to Death of Dallas. Despite the title it alludes to be the continuation of the story, and a fairly tame one at that!
Lewis also paid homage to the songs he grew up listening to and offered Toby Keith’s Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue, and Gath Brooks’ Friends in Low Places. In the end, it was a good setlist of solid country music, in his own style of performing, which is missing a lot in this day and age. With an industry churning out artists from a cookie cutter, especially male ones, it was an enjoyable evening of country.
I also wanted to bring some attention to Frank Vieira, a Pittsburgh based artist who opened the show for Trey Lewis. Vieira and his band laid down a nice set of country music, complete with original songs like More with Less, Me Without Beer, and a sing along finale lamenting the misfortunes of Warm Beer. In between, Vieira offered an incredibly tight and kicking rendition of Dierkes Bentley’s What Was I Thinking? and a take on Eric Church’s Springsteen.
All in all a nice opening set from a guy playing the area constantly. It would be so good to see Vieira get a break and see what he could do on a national level. He has the talent for it.
Frank Vieira Setlist:
1 More With Less
2 Me Without Beer
3 Everybody Wants to be Me
4 What Was I Thinking
5 HeartBroke
6 Holy Smoke
7 Springsteen
8 Warm Beer
Trey Lewis Setlist:
1 Coulda Been Me
2 Single Again
3 Pretty Hung
4 Dirt on my Boots
5 I Quit
6 Here
7 Drunk in a Bar
8 Mine Never Could
9 Drop the D
10 Girl Problem
11 Always You
12 Scared to Death of Dallas
13 Give a Country Boy A Call
14 Wishin’ I was Fishin’
15 Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue
16 Livin’ Left To Do
17 Friends in Low Places
18 Dicked Down in Dallas
