Posted: December 16th, 2008 at 10:31 am| Source: CMT.com
I wasn’t in Norway. And technically, it wasn’t a Dierks Bentley concert. So this is hardly an official concert review. But I will say that one look at this three and a half minute video from CNN and I can tell you it was one of Bentley’s best performances ever.
Why am I so sure? Well, look at him. All shined up in a classic three-piece suit and a silver tie. It’s like he respected his place at this Nobel Peace Prize concert enough to actually dress the part. I can’t say his country music brethren would’ve done the same. Plenty of them would kept their backwards ball caps and vintage t-shirts on.
And then listen to how good his music sounds with that orchestra. Not all country music can flow so well with strings. But Bentley’s “Feel That Fire” seemed to come alive with the help of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. Especially when you hear all those violins up against his one steel guitar. It really takes Bentley’s brand of country up a notch. So even though he’s singing about a girl who wants to paint her nails black and drive around in his truck with no place to go, it sounds classy as hell.
Bentley went all the way to Oslo to play just three songs. His new “Feel That Fire,” “Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go)” and another new one “Beautiful World.” If any song captures the idea of world peace, it’s that one, with lyrics about “The headlines and soundbites are giving me demons to hate/And the man on tv, he tells me it’s ugly but if you ask me/It’s a beautiful world.”
I’m not so sure this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Martti Ahtisaari, is a country fan. But I do think he’d agree with Bentley’s sentiment in that tune. “All conflicts can be settled and there are no excuses for letting them become eternal,” he told the press. And I think what he meant was, promoting world peace would definitely make for a beautiful world.
