As success stories in the music industry go, they don't get much bigger and quicker than Zach Bryan.
As egos and production go among arena-sized acts, though, they don't get much smaller than the Oklahoma country music picker's — a point hit home by his aw-shucks humble but awesomely high-spirited concert Wednesday night at Target Center.
After finishing up his eight-year stint in the U.S. Navy less than two years ago, the 27-year-old yokel jumped from no-name status to arena-headlining status in the amount of time it took Jason Aldean to hire a fleet of professional songwriters to pen his latest record.
Wednesday's Target Center gig — fully sold-out, to the tune of almost 20,000 people — was only Bryan's third gig in town in under two years, counting the Fillmore in November 2021 and last year's sold-out Surly Brewing outdoor show. At this rate, his next Twin Cities gigs will have to be at U.S. Bank Stadium in 2024 and then a runway at MSP International in 2025 to maintain the same incremental size increase.
Almost as impressive as his fast ascent, though, was how well Bryan maintained an intimate vibe and ultra-personal tone in Wednesday's supersized concert.
"Here's a song called 'Open the Gate.' Hope you don't hate it," he said as he took the stage, the first in a long line of self-deprecating comments that suggested he's as surprised as anyone by his rapid rise.
Performing on an in-the-round stage at the center of the arena, Bryan continually worked his way around it from song to song as if to make each section feel equally included. The visibly ecstatic and rowdy fans on the general admission floor around the stage became part of the show.
This wasn't a Def Leppard kind of in-the-round stage, though. Aside from a large video screen and backyard-style string lights overhead, the production was remarkably sparse. Bryan and his smoking seven-piece band certainly didn't look very fancy, either. The show's entire stage wardrobe probably could've been bought at a Dollar General.
Even the musical approach was rather basic: a slow and tender ballad here, a more high-energy barnstormer there, all spiked with a repetitious chorus and lots of fiery instrumental work on fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dobro or electric-twang guitar.
It's the songs themselves that turned Bryan into a star. And the songs arguably outshined him and his regular-joe persona in concert.
Starting with "Open the Gate" right on up until the closing number "Revival," the adoring arena crowd sang out almost every word of every song Wednesday as if the lyrics were being scrolled across the jumbo screen (they weren't). Only Taylor Swift's concerts compete in recent memory as a show where the fans sang along so loudly and passionately.
Mind you: Bryan's tunes aren't cheery, feel-good radio bait or trite drinking anthems like so many other modern country stars are churning out. They aren't even very happy songs.
Take "Something in the Orange," a gritty account of a breakup that went viral even before Bryan issued last year's three-LP major label debut "American Heartbreak." You can't imagine how happy the sold-out crowd seemed to be mid-show when it got to sing such lines as: "To you I'm just a man, to me you're all I am / Where the hell am I supposed to go? / I poisoned myself again."
Other standout cases of Bryan's misery enjoying the company of thousands included "God Speed" and "Quittin' Time" early in the nearly two-hour performance, and then "Heading South" and "Burn, Burn, Burn" at show's end.
One woman randomly got pulled out of the crowd to sing Maggie Rogers' part in "Dawns," and she not surprisingly knew every word (if not how to hit any of the notes). Opening act Charles Wesley Godwin and his entire band — who were joined by Bryan in their set for John Denver's "Country Roads" — also came out to help sing Bryan's one-song encore, "Revival."
All night long, Bryan sheepishly acknowledged the blaring vocal accompaniment and rabid reaction from the fans.
"I feel so, so grateful," he said after hearing them roar through another working-man's-blues tune, "Fifth of May."
About the only other thing of note he said between songs was to send out praise to someone beside the fans: his mama, to whom he paid tribute in one of the night's oldest tunes, "Sweet DeAnn."
The only songs that did not spark singalongs were the pair from a newly announced self-titled album due in just two weeks. The first of those, "Deep Satin" — about a lovelorn encounter with a fancily dressed city gal — became one of the night's most epic and dramatic numbers.
By the time Bryan comes to town again, you can be certain these same 20,000 or so fans — and probably 20,000 or so more — will let Bryan know they know every word to that song, too.
