For the past decade, country music has been plagued by artists trying their hardest to destroy the genre, artists and groups like Dan + Shay, Florida Georgia Line, Kane Brown, and Walker Hayes come to mind as artists in that category.
So when an artist like Cody Johnson breaks into the mainstream and spends multiple weeks at #1 on the Billboard Country Charts, it gives a huge sense of hope and a moment of restored faith. I’ll be completely transparent, Cody should’ve been a mainstream success many years ago to the point where it’s hilarious to see him nominated for “Best New Artist” awards and listed as a “newcomer” in a lot of press and media.
Originally from Huntsville, Texas, Johnson and his band have been touring relentlessly since 2006. In one of his many speeches over the course of the evening, Johnson said that he wanted to play the Nashville game when he started but quickly changed his mind after executives told him, “We like what you’re doing but what’s it gonna take to make you lose the hat.” After that, he said, he came back to Texas and relied on hard work and knew it would work itself out. He was completely right. Since then, he’s built an unmistakable brand, a die-hard fanbase, and has been selling out shows in the state at an unprecedented rate.
And I want to bring it up again, Johnson sold out Cook’s Garage. That’s a feat that’s only been accomplished one other time on their outdoor stage in my time here in Lubbock. And it wasn’t a day of sell-out either, this show had been sold out for a month before it happened. So on Friday, 10,000 people showed up at Cook’s Garage to sing, drink, dance, and enjoy themselves as the ultimate pre-game party for the next day’s UT and Tech football game.
This was my fourth time seeing Cody Johnson, even though I don’t really like to count the third time. I saw him in September 2020 at a socially distanced music festival here in Lubbock called “Hometown Heroes” which had three artists, Wade Bowen, Pat Green, and Johnson, performing live to a socially distanced audience and sets live-streamed from the two other Hometown Heroes shows in Austin and Dallas during set changes. The show was absolutely miserable. It was held in a dirt lot between Slide Rd and Auburn St with the beautiful backdrop of Loop 289 behind the stage. It was also very windy because we live in Lubbock. The experience was so awful that I swore off concerts until I knew we could be back to full capacity shows and being elbow to elbow with a bunch of random strangers.
While all of the performances were good, I wouldn’t have been upset to have just left when my brother decided he had had enough of the whole show. He and I are polar opposites in the fact that he absolutely hates going to concerts. However, that also ties into why I was excited to see Johnson again. Back in August, Johnson played at Concrete Street Amphitheater in Corpus Christi and recorded the venue’s fasted sellout to date. My brother went to the show and told me after that it was “100/10.” I already knew Johnson was a great performer and I’ve loved his music for a while, and I am happy to confirm that 100/10 was probably apt for his two-hour set on Friday night.
For starters, there’s not a single aspect of the show where Johnson and his band don’t give 110%. Between his energy on stage, his voice, his band’s performances, the lighting, the setlist, his interactions with the crowd, he excels in every category. And it makes perfect sense too, he told Bobby Bones in an interview that in this Texas scene, it’s hard to chase hits and album sales to try and gets fans that way. The best way to get fans in this scene is to have a great live show and word of mouth will spread. On stage, Johnson is like a wild animal. He opened the show by crawling out from under a curtain bearing his name, waving his arms to get the audience to make some noise, then took three steps to get down the staircase of the bandstand and sprinted to the stage left corner. He sprints across the stage, he does a signature jump/shuffle step, and at one point, at the beginning of Wild as You, he ran towards my section so fast and jumped that I thought he was going to stage dive.
To be honest, all Johnson had to do was walk on stage and the crowd would’ve been in the palm of his hand. They were singing along to every word, songs like Diamond in My Pocket and Me and My Kind had sing-alongs that made it hard to hear him singing at times. Maybe that’s because of the brand and fanbase that he’s built up, but it might also be because of a statement he made at the beginning of the show saying “I hear you guys are supposed to beat UT tomorrow. Just so you know, your performance tomorrow is all based upon how much you participate tonight.”
Should a career in music ever fail somehow all fall apart for him, he could easily be just as famous and make just as much by being a public speaker. This is gonna be such a random thing to spend a paragraph on but he is seriously an amazing speaker. Whether he was telling the story about his first show in Lubbock (“There were probably 25 people there that night, including the bar staff,”) telling the story Nashville originally passing on him and telling a kid in the front row, “Don’t ever compromise yourself to achieve your goals,” or getting any law enforcement and military personnel to raise their hands before saying, “Politicians don’t keep you free, celebrities with blue check marks don’t keep you free, these men and women do,” then commanding everyone at a VIP table to “get off their ass and cheer,” he spoke extremely powerfully for the entire evening.
The setlist was extremely well paced, kicking off the night with Honky Tonk Hardwood Floors, Wild as You, and Ride With Me, an extremely high-energy way to start off the show. I guess my only complaint for it would be that it felt extremely front-loaded with him playing nearly every one of his hits in the first third of the show. Regardless, he still found ways to keep me excited and interested. Between the absolute fury of energy during Let’s Build a Fire, the anthemic choruses of Stronger and On My Way to You, and an incredible cover of The Chicks’ Travelin’ Soldier, he kept everyone engaged at all times. However, the biggest bow on the evening was very easily his performance of ‘Til You Can’t which closed the main set. His first huge mainstream success, the song is one of the best hit country songs in a long time. A tune about how it’s important to soak in the big moments, hug your loved ones, and spend time with them until their time runs out. The performance of the song did, honestly, nearly bring me to tears as it did the first time I heard the song. That one line, “If you got a dream, chase it, ’cause a dream won’t chase you back” hits me like a brick wall every time.
The show was opened by Randy Houser and Ned LeDoux. And yes, LeDoux is indeed the son of the late legendary cowboy and country singer Chris LeDoux. Ned’s stage presence was exactly like the videos I’ve seen of his dad, he even played a handful of his dad’s songs, going on a run through This Cowboy’s Hat, Copenhagen, Hooked On An 8 Second Ride, and Cadillac Cowboy to close his set. He also has original music out now and that original material was also fantastic and has warranted a proper listen from me.
Houser was also fantastic and it blows my mind that he was opening for Johnson. At one point, it seemed like Houser could’ve sold out this venue on his own but he decided to not keep making hits so as his music grew in quality, he lost a bit of momentum sales-wise. However, he still has a ton of hits and is another artist I can add to the list of “country singers that you wouldn’t expect to actually be incredible guitar players.” Seriously, he shredded on songs like Whistlin’ Dixie and How Country Feels. I had been wanting to see Houser for a super long time and his set exceeded my expectations, I hope I get the chance to see him again sometime soon.
There’s one last thing I want to point out before I end this recap. I usually try to keep political views and politically motivated statements out of these recaps, however, I can’t not mention this since it’s hilarious. Before his performance of Long Haired Country Boy, Johnson did the thing I mentioned earlier where he asked all law enforcement and military personnel to raise their hands and made statements about how he’s a proud American and patriot, he’s tired of people that are trying to run this country into the ground, and how people have gotten mad at him before since, in the year 2022, “It’s unpatriotic to be patriotic.” It’s a speech that reflects Johnson’s views and values and there’s nothing wrong with that, I’ve heard plenty of artists give political speeches at shows from both sides of the aisle. The reason I bring this up though is that not even 10 minutes later, while introducing his band, Johnson’s steel guitar player led a rendition of Bombtrack by Rage Against the Machine. Yes, the song with lyrics about warming your hands with a burning American flag and watching the powers that be and their businesses burn. It’s the polar opposite of what Johnson’s values are. This is probably going to be dumb to most of y’all that read this but I found it hilarious and needed to share it.
For overall thoughts, I’m not really sure how much more I can say. I know I’ve said this about nearly everyone I’ve seen in my past 7 months writing for this station but I truly mean it when I say that Cody Johnson is one of the best touring acts from this Texas scene, point blank period. He’s probably in my top 3 and as he continues to grow, he’s only gotten better. As he graduates to an arena tour next spring, I’m very happy and feel a strange sense of pride that he’s finally at that level. He is the most deserving artist for that kind of success and I can’t wait to see what he does next.
Cody Johnson’s Setlist:
Honky Tonk Hardwood Floors
Wild As You
Ride With Me
Dance Her Home
Diamond in My Pocket
Half a Song
With You I Am
Nothin’ on You
Son of a Ramblin Man (Vince Gill cover)
Dear Rodeo
Let’s Build a Fire
Travelin’ Soldier (The Chicks cover)
Stronger
Me and My Kind
On My Way To You
Long Haired Country Boy (Charlie Daniels Band cover)
Human
‘Til You Can’t
Encore:
She’s Acting Single (I’m Drinking Double) (Gary Stewart cover)
The Bottle Let Me Down (Merle Haggard cover)
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