KZLA Event: Part Cookout, Part Fair and All Promotion

Love doesn’t give you second chances. Betrayal sucks. KZLA-FM (93.9) is a great radio station. These were just some of the lessons imparted by the performers at KZLA’s second annual Country Cookout on Sunday at the Universal Amphitheatre, a roundup of current hit-makers for fans with short attention spans.

The organizers of the event clearly wanted to conjure a county fair vibe. There were numerous food stands around the perimeter of the Amphitheatre offering Southern grub, and a record retailer’s booth provided up-close-and-personal meet-and-greets with some of the day’s participants.

But the down-home pretense only provided a homey veneer for what was essentially a radio package showcase. After such wannabe superstar acts as Yankee Grey and Jessica Andrews commandeered an outdoor stage during the afternoon, the headliners took turns hopping on the revolving stage inside the Amphitheatre in the evening, where they wowed the sold-out crowd with hits for about 20 minutes each.

The lineup demonstrated how country stars thrive with fixed, easy-to-grasp personas. Show openers Bryan White and Lila McCann represented the genre’s wholesome youth flank, and provided chaste, lovelorn balladry. Kansan Chely Wright dressed like a business executive and projected feminine fortitude in songs that celebrated liberation from the shackles of bad relationships. Ty Herndon, country’s reigning male sex bomb, writhed in tight leather pants and made the cowgirls squeal. Jo Dee Messina was the evening’s brassiest performer, a Sophie Tucker with twang and a take-no-prisoners attitude about romance.

Tracy Lawrence betrayed a real grasp of authentic country idioms. A gifted singer whose pinpoint phrasing and plangent tone echo Randy Travis’, Lawrence alternated between stripped-down honky-tonk and formulaic fodder, making him the evening’s most frustrating case of arrested musical development. The same went for show closer Martina McBride, whose range is startling at times, but whose musical quest for female self-determination felt like pandering.