Near the end of his midtempo ballad "A Woman's Love," Alan Jackson tried to wedge a stick with a small American flag into the neck of his acoustic guitar.
It took him several tries before it worked. The flag fluttered on a breeze blowing through Casino del Sol's AVA.
"Today's the seventh anniversary of this tragedy," Jackson said as his band played the opening chords of "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)," the country singer's answer to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The crowd of nearly 2,800 roared. Dozens waved hand-held flags provided by the casino. Many broke out in quiet sobs.
Then a hush fell over the amphitheater. All you heard was Jackson's comfortably worn baritone taking us back to where we were when terrorists attacked on U.S. soil seven years earlier.
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It was a poignant moment, and one many had expected to hear at the end of Jackson's 75-minute show, not 30 minutes into it.
But its placement was most likely calculated. Jackson wanted the song — one of his biggest singles and arguably the one that has secured him a footnote somewhere in the 9/11 chapter of history — to be a fleeting moment, not the central focus.
The central focus of his show was his rollicking, neo-traditional country rockers that beg you to abandon your seat and dance.
Or storm the stage, as dozens of women — followed a while later by about half as many men — did before Jackson had gotten out the first full verse of his rousing anthem "Gone Country."
It was the same song he opened his last AVA show with seven years ago. He was the first artist to perform at the amphitheater, which opened in the shadow of 9/11.
"Good seeing you all here," Jackson, who turns 50 next month, told the audience. "Y'all are pretty loud for a Thursday night."
Jackson's concert was dominated by upbeat rockers culled from his nearly 20-year career, including his signature tunes "Don't Rock the Juke Box" and "Chattahoochee." He delivers them in a soothing Georgia- accented voice that is equally effective on novelty songs like the upbeat toe-tapper "Little Bitty" and heart-wrenching ballads like "Remember When."
Jackson seals his bona-fide country credentials with acoustic and steel guitar, fiddle and mandolin. The combination brings a delicious twang to "Tall Tall Trees" and the reflective "Small Town Southern Man."
Among the biggest crowd pleasers Thursday was the Jimmy Buffett duet drinking song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere." Buffett wasn't there in person, so Jackson improvised by flashing a video of the pair singing on a trio of gigantic screens.
Those screens also flashed scenes of Tucson throughout "Where I Come From," including several local restaurants, the University of Arizona, military folks, Casino del Sol and the Drexel Heights Fire District. Like they did seven years ago when Jackson showed a similar video, the crowd erupted in deafening shouts at every nod to the Wildcats.
But the most poignant image on those screens Thursday night was at the end of "Where Were You." It was the ubiquitous photograph of the firefighters raising an American flag in the middle of the World Trade Center rubble. Seven years later, that picture, like Jackson's moving lyrics, takes us back to that September day.
Review
Alan Jackson at Casino del Sol's AVA Thursday.
