Ronnie Dunn and Kix Brooks long insisted they should go out on top.
They certainly did Sunday night at the sold-out Pan Am Center.
There's no doubt area fans had been anxious to catch Brooks & Dunn's "The Last Rodeo" tour, the final act of their 20-year arranged marriage. The show was pretty much sold out three days after it went on sale. Late ticket releases pushed the attendance figure to 9.590 on Sunday night.
What they got for their anticipation was not the mechanical emotionless recitation of the duo's biggest hits, though there were plenty of those in Sunday's two-hour show.
What they got was a loose, fun, relaxed, energetic and celebratory performance, which came on the boot heels of a 15-minute teaser set from grainy-voiced 16-year-old country-rocker Tyler Dickerson and 50 hit-filled, crowd-pleasing minutes of 33-year-old Georgian Jason Aldean.
His energy, particularly on breakthrough hit "Big Green Tractor" and faithful cover of Kid Rock's rap-rocker "Cowboy," exceeded his mostly by-the-numbers style of radio-friendly, rocked up country. He clearly had a following of his own — building booking manager Bobbie Welch has said she'd like to bring Aldean in to headline his own show. Seems like he'd draw pretty well.
Brooks & Dunn mostly created formulas, not followed them, since exploding on the country music scene in 1991, when the hat act scare (you know, that new wave of country singers who wore cowboy hats like it was a job requirement, but music that was closer to pop and rock than anything Merle or Jones gave us) was in full force.
Their music's always been a blend of the traditional and the contemporary, as Sunday's show made clear. It was chock full of hits, a career-spanning string of more than two dozen hits, evidence enough of why they're country's most successful duo.
The set list, like many a B&D concert in the past, touched upon all the major song types that made them such a successful, heavily-decorated and celebrated duo. It ranged from cleverly worded humorous songs ("Put a Girl In It") and cry-in-your-beer honky tonk weepers ("I'll Never Forgive My Heart") to wistful reminisces ("Red Dirt Road," which Brooks said reminded him of the area) and danceable kiss-offs ("Boot Scootin' Boogie," which closed the show).
They even threw in a flag waver, "Only in America," which included four uniformed military personnel, much to the delight of the crowd, and plenty of red-white-blue confetti to push home the patriotic mood piece's point.
While the show got off to a typically upbeat, rock-and-soul kind of start, it wasn't until Dunn invested his pained, throaty tenor in the heartbreak of "I'll Never Forgive My Heart" that the performance elevated from rote to inspired. Brooks followed it with the break-up song "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone," holding that high note as if to suggest that Dunn isn't the only lead singer in this soon to be former duo who can sing.
It was all uphill from there.
While theirs isn't the most natural feeling chemistry, Brooks and Dunn sure looked like they were enjoying themselves Sunday. Brooks is the more outgoing, loquacious one, though musically is more John Oates than Darryl Hall. Perched on a stool on a B-stage in the middle of the packed arena, he joked that the duo was breaking up because he correctly guessed that the crowd would recognize one of their older hits.
Dunn later countered by saying they breaking up because Brooks got to list his name first and got to wear a cowboy hat as part of their image. Dunn, a Texas native and New Mexico resident who recently celebrated his 20th wedding anniversary, later brandished a large, block-letter tattoo (which might not have been real) of the word "cowboy" to prove his credentials.
The cowboy connection runs deeper. Local promoter Barbara Hubbard, who had a piece of Sunday's Live Nation-produced show, used $10,000 from ticket sales profits to set up the Brooks & Dunn Rodeo Fund endowment, which will provide scholarships for members of NMSU's rodeo team and others.
While they never addressed the real reason for their impending end, which comes after an Aug. 10 Country Hall of Fame benefit in Nashville, the two men sure seemed to be enjoying themselves Sunday. Ditto for the crowd, several members of which jumped up onstage during the "Boot Scootin'" encore, only to be boot-scooted off by harried security personnel.
You never got the sense Sunday that these two guys couldn't stand each other. If anything, they seemed to be enjoying this last ride, and if the Las Cruces show was any indication of what's to come, this is one duo that plans to go out on top.
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