Brad Paisley with Jewel at the Sprint Center, 8/01/08

Brad Paisley with Jewel

Better Than: Brad Paisley without Jewel, surprisingly enough

By ALAN SCHERSTUHL

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Ninety seconds after storming the stage, current pop country king Brad Paisley was already on his second guitar. Or maybe it was his first. Reality gets tricky during the Paisley Party Tour, a four artist, three-and-a-half hour, Hersheys-sponsored crash-course in just how weird— and sometimes wonderful— life is at the crossover point between pop and country. By the time Paisley finally emerges, with the energy and authority you’d expect from someone sitting on a string of seven number one singles, it wasn’t even really him. Projected life-size at the top of his two-story stage set, a video image of Paisley picked out the opening verse of “Mud on the Tires” on an acoustic guitar. Then the song kicks in, and the real Paisley trots down the staircase, and I swear to shit a roadie sprints in to hand him his signature guitar, a gorgeous, paislied, baby blue Telecaster that he then wielded way out in front of him like the space marines in Aliens do their giant space guns.

More after the jump.