Nickelback Burns it to the Ground at Boots & Hearts!

Friday brought the first full day of Boots and Hearts with both stages going all day.

The Front Porch stage had Parker Graye, Teigan Gayse, Ashland Craft, JJ Wilde and Big Wreck. These artists only got between 30 to 45 minute sets but I could’ve listened to all of them all day long they all brought lots of energy to the stage and were happy and some were even surprised by the size of the crowd that had shown up to watch them play.

The Main Stage kicked off with Manny Blu and then Cory Marks from just up highway 11 a couple hours in North Bay took to the stage and gave a kick ass 45 minute set that had the crowd growing by the minute and set the tone for the rest of the night. The “Outlaws and Outsiders” singer was a little more Rock than the Boots and Hearts crowd might have been used to but with the Friday night Rock lineup Boots and Hearts put together he definitely fit in nicely. He also played “Blame It On The Double” which is my favorite song of Cory’s and he has a newer song which he played live for the 1st time only 2 months ago at the Sound of Music Festival in Burlington. With the reactions Cory Marks got from the crowd that I was around I’d say it won’t be very long before Boots and Hearts has him back to play in future years.

Next on the Main stage was Bailey Zimmerman and I think he had just about every single girl on site in at that stage to watch him perform he started off with his hit “Religiously” and had a high energy set where he was all over the stage working the crowd into a frenzy. In the middle of his set he talked a bit and just said he only started singing 2 years ago and he thanked everyone for giving himself, his mother and father and band a life that they only could’ve dreamed of. He closed out his set with “Fall in Love” and “Rock and a Hard Place” which both reached #1 on the Billboard Country Airplay Chart. Zimmerman will be back in Canada next month when he opens up for Morgan Wallen on the “one night at a time” tour which has stops in London, Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec.

Then it was time for Michael Wilson Hardy known professionally as HARDY he couldn’t have picked a better song to kick off his set as he came out in a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey to “Sold Out” with the Boots and Hearts concert grounds at Capacity with what Hardy guessed to be close to 50,000 people, He also asked the crowd how many were at Boots and Hearts 4 years ago to the day when he played an earlier time slot on the main stage to what he said was probably only 3,000 people. I was at that performance 4 years ago and knew Hardy would be back in future years and get a later time slot. He’s a super talented songwriter who’s wrote hit songs for Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton, Dallas Smith, Thomas Rhett and his best friend Morgan Wallen. He mixed up his set nicely with lots of older crowd favorites and some newer songs from his recently released “Mockingbird and the Crow” album. Hardy even complimented the crowd about 6 songs in as he said this crowd knew all the words to all of the songs they had played so far and what made it more impressive were none of those songs were radio songs. He played “BOOTS” which seemed like a shoe in to make the setlist since he was at Boots and Hearts he also played “Rednecker” and his massive chart topping hit “Wait in the Truck” which features Lainey Wilson who has skyrocketed to stardom and is one of the more powerful women in the country music world these days. Lainey Wilson appeared on the big screens on each side of the stage and sang her parts in the song. He closed with ” The Mockingbird and The Crow” and as he left the stage that wouldn’t be the last time the crowd would see him.

After a 45 minute intermission the lights went down and it was finally time for what most of the crowd was there to see Nickelback hit the stage to flames shooting up that the crowd close to the stage could surely feel the heat they provided. They banged out hit after hit and even though it was fairly obvious that Chad Kroeger was having vocal problems the crowd just carried on signing if he ever took a break no matter what song it was. They did a cover of Steve Earle’s ” Copperhead Road” which got the crowd going more wild than they already were. Before playing the song

“Figured you out” Chad told the crowd that the song they were about to play they’re lucky they released it back in the early 2000’s because they would’ve never got to or they would’ve created a big shit storm with the way the world has changed in the last 20 years. They played “Photograph” out at the end of the catwalk and then followed that up by Chad saying the next song they were looking for some rock stars if any were around that could possibly join them on stage and he had to repeat himself a few times because that was supposed to be Bailey Zimmermans cue to cone out on stage and kick off the song “Rockstar” with the band, as the song got to the 2nd verse Chad goes maybe we have more Rockstars around and out came Hardy to sing along with Zimmerman and Nickelback it was probably most of the crowds favorite moment of the set as each artist got thunderous roars when they came out for their part in the song. They finished the set with “How You Remind Me” and then left the stage but the Boots and Hearts crowd knew they weren’t done just yet chanting “Encore” “Encore” for probably 2 minutes until the band reappeared and played “Burn it to the Ground” with lots of on stage Pyro to close out the Friday night at Boots and Hearts.