YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Even if you are a mild fan, it’s easy to see why many call a Tim McGraw concert their favorite one of the year.
He’s not from another era, but his music and his simplicity remain timeless. It’s old school and based more on his vocals than any current trend.
McGraw’s concert Saturday night at Wean Park was two years in the making. He was supposed to headline the Y-Live show last year, until it got canceled.
For fans who waited, it was worth it.
Fans crowded into the downtown venue as McGraw played a 21-song set that included new music, like 2023’s “Paper Umbrellas,” and the very oldest stuff, like “Indian Outlaw” from the early ’90s.
The opening night of this year’s Y-Live was Friday, with a concert featuring John Mayer. A catwalk from center stage that walked out into the audience was added for the second night.
McGraw is still ripped at age 58, but he has done it all. The cowboy hat was on Saturday night, but for a brief moment he displayed the new bald head look he started sporting this summer.
McGraw appeared with his wife, Faith Hill, as cowboy James Dutton in Paramount’s hit “1883” series that aired mostly in 2022.
Since then, he’s had several knee and back surgeries. His on-stage movements are more planned at this time, but he is on the improvement list.
“I treated myself like I was 30, and it caught up with me,” he told the crowd Saturday.
His 95-minute set included some of country’s greatest hits: “Shotgun Rider,” “I Like It, I Love It,” “Something Like That” and “Live Like You Were Dying,” which sent the crowd home.
Scenes from “1883” on the stage backdrop helped light up “The Cowboy in Me” during the encore.
For “Humble and Kind,” fans – as always – knew the words and helped sing them. At one point, they took over.
One last thing happened toward the end of McGraw’s set that we hope turns out perfect – a young couple got up on stage, with the man getting down on one knee and asking his girlfriend if she’ll marry him. She said yes.
Opening the show were sets by The Band Perry and Chase McDaniel.
With beautiful Kimberly Perry back in charge, The Band Perry returned to country music action this year after a couple years doing solo stuff and pop work.
“I can’t imagine a better way to get back on the horse than in Ohio,” she told Saturday’s crowd.
The act also includes her brother, Reid, and her husband, John Costello. She and Reid have been playing together just about all their lives.
The Band Perry played a new song, “Country Nirvana,” which celebrates their return to country music.
McDaniel was an interesting opening act.
The Kentucky native overcame some hard times when his father died years ago of a drug overdose. He again told the story of a moment he spent on a bridge in Louisville, Ky., at 3 a.m., pondering whether to continue his life. That’s when a stranger ran up to him and told him, “We need you. Keep fighting.”
Several of McDaniel’s songs seek to encourage those who are moved to the breaking point, including “Lost Ones.”
Night One
This year’s Y-Live was the first time the annual show was a two-night affair, and John Mayer, who headlined Friday, was a rare get for Youngstown.
On both nights, there were many fans who came from multiple states away – some from California – to see either artist.
Friday’s crowd was every bit into Mayer as Saturday’s crowd was there for McGraw.
Mayer, who is also in Dead & Co., hasn’t performed his solo material in public since his 2023 solo set. In that year’s show, he talked a lot with the audience about the stories behind each song and what they meant to him.
The show included his full eight-piece band but none of the songcraft.
Mayer is a great guitarist, and pretty much every song in his Sunday morning-style rock featured him on a solo. He switched guitars for every song, sometimes playing two in the same set.
Mayer’s 13-song set included four tunes from his latest album, 2023’s “Sob Rock.” They were “Last Train Home,” “I Guess I Just Feel Like,” “Wild Blue” and “New Light.”
His massive hit, “Waiting on the World to Change,” and four other songs from the great “Continuum” album were also on the set list.
For those who were wondering, there were no Dead & Co. (aka, The Grateful Dead afterlife) songs in the show. Mayer continues to learn from the ethos of Dead & Co., but he’s not currently in the mindset of writing new tunes for his own career, he told People magazine this summer.
Putting out a record means work in the studio and on the road, and it’s just not where he is at this moment.
Opening for Mayer was Charles Kelley of Lady A, who is pushing his own new solo album, “Songs for a New Moon.”
Opening the show was none other than The Clarks. The Pittsburgh band has played the Youngstown area dozens of times over the past 30 years but never in a place the size of Wean Park.
Pictured at top: Tim McGraw performs in Youngstown on Saturday.