Brooks & Dunn Bring 'Last Rodeo' Farewell Tour to Little Rock

by Julian Spivey
Brooks & Dunn, one of the greatest acts in the history of country music, brought their “Last Rodeo” tour to Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, Ark. on Saturday (August 21). The duo, along with Miranda Lambert and Tyler Dickerson played to a packed house for about three and a half hours.
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Dickerson, an up-and-coming 16-year old out of Mississippi, opened the show at about 7:30 p.m. with a thankfully short four song set. Dickerson is apparently trying to be country’s teeny-bopper version of Justin Bieber. His set included the utterly ridiculous “Just Like Hank, But Just Can’t Drank” and his upcoming single “She’d Be You.”

Shortly after Dickerson left the stage, Lambert took it and rocked the house with one of the loudest country sets, if not the loudest, that I’ve ever personally heard. She began her nearly hour long set with “Kerosene” the massive hit that really set off her career about five years ago.

Lambert followed with her many singles like “Famous in a Small Town” and “Gunpowder & Lead” from previous albums. Most of the songs she performed were off of her most recent album “Revolution,” which many critics and fans alike say is one of the best country albums of the year. The songs off of “Revolution” included “Dead Flowers,” “White Liar,” her current single “Only Prettier” and “Sin for a Sin,” which was co-written by Lambert’s fiancé and fellow country star Blake Shelton. The crowd favorite of Lambert’s set was clearly “The House That Built Me,” which is her first career number one single and would be a shock if it wasn’t nominated for song of the year in the upcoming CMA Award nominations.

My personal favorite moment of Lambert’s set was the rip-roaring back-to-back covers of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Travelin’ Band” and John Prine’s “That’s the Way the World Goes ‘Round.”

Following Lambert came the moment that everybody paid their hard earned money for, to see Brooks & Dunn perform for the final time in Little Rock on their farewell “Last Rodeo” tour. The most celebrated duo in country music history kicked off their set with two of my personal least favorite Brooks & Dunn tunes: “Play Something Country” and “You Can’t Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl.”

However, things quickly got better after the duo’s first two songs as they played hit after classic hit. All in all, Brooks & Dunn performed 11 number one hits. Among the number ones performed by B&D were “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone,” “My Maria,” “Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You,” “How Long Gone,” “It’s Getting Better All the Time” and “Neon Moon.”

The crowd favorite from Brooks & Dunn’s set, although all of their songs truly seemed to be crowd favorites, had to be “Only in America,” which featured four U.S. soldiers on stage and red, white and blue confetti.

My personal favorite performances from Brooks & Dunn were Kix Brooks’ “Lost and Found” and Ronnie Dunn’s “Red Dirt Road.”

The duo finished off the wonderful farewell concert with a two-song encore which featured their first ever number one hit “Brand New Man” and their classic “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.”