Concert Reviews
Wallen gave an intriguing performance, but that doesn’t mean it was interesting.
Morgan Wallen is an asshole.
This is not a criticism; it’s his brand. He knows it clearly enough to title a single, an album, and a tour “I’m The Problem. He foregrounded it on Friday (his first of two nights at Gillette Stadium), when he sang the song in question directly underneath a video montage cataloguing his many public bouts of assholedom: flipping the metaphorical finger to Saturday Night Live, violating COVID protocols during the heart of the pandemic, that sort of thing.
And it was the subject, both explicit and implied, of a great many of his hits. For Wallen, being an unrepentant pain in the ass isn’t a liability; it’s just good business.
But as good as he is at being an asshole, he’s less deft at turning that into compelling art. Unlike his country-asshole forebears like Toby Keith, Wallen’s assholery is a function not of cockiness but of grievance and entitlement, a feeling that he’s been wronged or denied his due. “Last Night” was a song about how the person being addressed just can’t quit the singer, and while Keith might have delivered it with a hint of confident inevitability, Wallen gave it an undercurrent of vengefulness. When he sang “No way it was our last night,” he sounded like a man with a chip on his shoulder.
That chip has broken him out of the country ecosystem and turned him into a full-on pop star, of course, and his massive success has done a lot to justify his sleeveless swaggering. The four-guitar submetallic lurch of “Up Down,” with assists from openers Zach John King and Corey Kent, made the whole stadium bounce, and duet partner Miranda Lambert helped give “Cowgirls” some balance. And while Post Malone didn’t make it a hat trick by showing up for “I Had Some Help,” Wallen invoked some of his absent collaborator’s stumble-clowning and worked wonders in the process.
Unfortunately, Wallen couldn’t sustain that degree of amiability on his own. Fixing his baritone bray-whine on “Kiss Her In Front Of You,” he wasn’t just hurt but lashing out with a palpable meanness. “I’m The Problem” followed the same template, adding an element of him fixing the blame for his transgressions squarely on someone else’s shoulders. The light and airy backing couldn’t keep Wallen from larding “I Got Better” with an “Ain’t I a stinker?” wink.
As a result, songs that were supposed to serve as moments of connection felt cynical. Wallen made his way to a small stage set up on the back of the field as an avowed attempt to bridge the gulf that’s opened up between him and his audience since he started playing enormodomes, and “Sand In My Boots” was as straightforwardly earnest as he might be capable of, essentially a Zac Brown ballad. But as delicate as the fingerpicking on “I’m A Little Crazy” was, the follow-up line “… but the world’s insane” downplayed his own flaws and made everyone else the problem yet again.
Befitting his mainstream stardom (and possibly contributing to it), Wallen’s musical template offered some intriguing deviations from country orthodoxy. 1980s rock and pop loomed large: “Love Somebody” was neon-soaked and Quarterflash-y, “TN” ran on guitar lines reminiscent of The Long Run-era Eagles (the least-country period of the most country-embraced rock band), “Kick Myself” ran on the smooth glide of the New Romantics, Wallen’s live debut of “I Ain’t Comin’ Back” was like the soft AOR from the middle of the decade and the Luke Combs-ish “This Bar” recalled the sparkly anthems of U2 and the Waterboys. And plenty of songs rode the dry clicks of electronic percussion that characterize a lot of hip-hop from the last ten years or so.
But “intriguing” doesn’t always mean “interesting,” and Wallen himself couldn’t elevate the material above the glum, pounding creep that so much of his material was built on. He closed out with the half-time boom and outward-facing charge of “The Way I Talk,” and it could have just as easily been Maroon 5 or OneRepublic, rock bands successfully blended for pop acceptance, were it not for the fight he was raring for in one of the lines. That one was pure Wallen.
Opener Zach John King played around in much the same sandbox as Wallen, albeit with a kinder and gentler tenor rasp. Corey Kent’s own rasp was harder, gruffer and tighter, delivering gritted-teeth admissions of vulnerability like “This Heart” and showcasing – in the “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” guitar quote in “Ain’t My Day” and a full and faithful cover of Oasis’s “Champagne Supernova” – an expansive conception of what could qualify as country.
Offered the indignity of a subheadlining set that didn’t crack the one-hour mark, Miranda Lambert showed how to cover a fair amount of thematic and emotional ground without the contradictions showing. From the gentlehearted warmth of “The House That Built Me” and the feather-light freedom of “Bluebird” to the bust-it-up snap and sneer of “Geraldene” and organ-driven frat-rock of “Little Red Wagon,” she showcased the versatility that’s created one of the most robust catalogues in modern country music, culminating in her entry in the substantial canon of great abused-women country anthems, the slash-twang revenge snarl of “Gunpowder & Lead.”
Setlist for Morgan Wallen at Gillette Stadium — August 22, 2025
Ain’t That Some
Kick Myself
I Got Better
Love Somebody
You Proof
20 Cigarettes
Dark Til Daylight
Kiss Her In Front Of You
Don’t We
Cover Me Up (Jason Isbell cover)
I’m A Little Crazy
Sand In My Boots
Up Down (with Corey Kent and Zach John King)
Cowgirls (with Miranda Lambert)
I Had Some Help (Post Malone cover)
I Ain’t Comin’ Back
TN
Thinkin’ Bout Me
This Bar
More Than My Hometown
What I Want
Whiskey Glasses
I’m The Problem
ENCORE
Last Night
Just In Case
The Way I Talk
Marc Hirsh can be reached at [email protected] or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social.
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