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Brandt, Brody put on great show at CN Centre

Paul Brandt keeps conquering country. How can a guy base his entire career outside of Nashville - outside of the whole U.S. of A. - and keep churning out the hits? On Tuesday night, it was hard for him to squeeze all his hits into one show.
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Paul Brandt brought his award winning country sound to CN Centre on Tuesday as he and co-headliner Dean Brody rolled their 2015 Road Trip Tour into Prince George.

Paul Brandt keeps conquering country.

How can a guy base his entire career outside of Nashville - outside of the whole U.S. of A. - and keep churning out the hits?

On Tuesday night, it was hard for him to squeeze all his hits into one show. In fact, he abbreviated a couple of them and skipped some altogether like one of my personal favourites called Yeah from early in his career.

He didn't even play his best song. He never does. The tune For You from the movie soundtrack of We Were Soldiers is a Paul Brandt cowritten song performed by Dave Matthews and Johnny Cash. OK, so, if I wrote a song sung by either of those two guys, I'd have the fact tattooed on my palm and wave at everyone I ever saw, but he has so much career confidence, he doesn't even make mention of it.

The remarkable feature Brandt does brandish is his musical staying power. Not every song is a hit, not every album goes into the desert island collection, but never does a prolonged period of time go by that he doesn't give the world a gem of a song. He started with My Heart Has A History and I Do which are, by almost any songwriter's gauge, two of the best country tunes ever recorded, from a pure mechanics and composition point of view. Those are career songs for any artist.

But even without the expensive record company conjurers working on his behalf he keeps getting it done, so the live concert fills up fast. When You Call My Name, his brilliant cover of Convoy, Small Towns And Big Dreams... those are all great and popular songs.

But then you throw in Didn't Even See The Dust (Shotgun) and the brand new Open Road and you've got two songs from the latter years of his career that are possibly, like the first two, among the best a country artist has ever penned. The roar of the CN Centre audience was proof enough for anyone.

Brandt also has a knack for presenting himself to the public.

No matter how many times you've seen his concerts in the past, you get a new experience every time. In this case, bouncing beach balls and inflatable ducks.

He walked through the crowd to a second stage and gave a toned down mini-concert for the back of the room.

He preached his Christian values without putting off nonbelievers and then got everyone on his side with a singalong version of Amazing Grace. Then, to close the night, he cracked off a compelling version of Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down and Dwight Yoakum's Guitars, Cadillacs.

He even made it charming to sing off key. It's part of the live experience to get little glitches, and you could tell from his speaking voice that he was fighting a bit of a cold. So when he didn't get every note, you could smile and shrug it off especially since he did hit some splendid vocal moments, both on the high side and baritone side of the register.

It almost made you forget you got two other shows the same evening. It was a solid four hours from arrival at the arena to arrival back at your home, because Dean Brody also made his Prince George debut and put on a headliner-worthy performance as well, and Jess Moskaluke did the first arena show of her life here in our city.

Wow, what a voice she has. She set a rich standard by taking on the massive power-ballad Alone by Heart and squeezed the stuffing out of that one. Then she gave the audience an extra thrill by personally duetting with Brandt on their current radio hit Open Road.

As for Brody, well I've been watching concerts at the professional level for more than 20 years and I have never seen a chainsaw solo before. It was off the chain, man. And that was just the fun gimmick. The Smithers-born, Kootenays-raised star had the crowd exploding, song after song.

And when he sang the touching story-song (he has a great habit of writing those) Brothers, it added some lump in the throat to know his own bro was there in the Prince George audience (he lives around these parts, while Dean lives in Nova Scotia) watching the fans give the guy so much love for his craftsmanship.

He can make you cry, but he mostly likes to make you laugh. He is Canada's answer to Brad Paisley.

And now I want to know what he's going to solo on next - a boat motor? A dirt bike?

Whatever - I'm in.

And that goes for the blowing up going on in Moskaluke's career, too, and Brandt is, clearly, always worth the price of admission.