Dierks on Easy Street - Record Store Day

Vinyl album sales are up 20% over last year to date, and Dierks Bentley was a guest of honor, performing in the fifth annual Record Store Day today at Easy Street Records in Seattle, Washington.

Although he was only one of hundreds of bands performing in record stores across the nation, Dierks featured special guests such as Mike McCready from the legendary band, Pearl Jam. Many of you will remember McCready's guitar riff at the beginning of Life On The Run, on DB's Feel That Fire album, sounding so much like a motorcycle, you almost forgot it was a guitar--that's talent!

Dierks, bassist Cassidy Feasby and fiddle player Dan Hochhalter could not contain their excitement on Twitter about getting to play music with their idols.

Below are two videos from You Tube of the cover performances..  Before "Just Breathe" be sure to listen to DB talking about the song and what it means to him.  Dierks and Team Dude also sang Feel That Fire, Am I The Only One, and Home.  

Just Breathe (Pearl Jam cover):
Special guest Mike McCready!! Easy Street Records, Seattle, Washington - April 21, 2012 - Record Store Day - 100.7 WOLF

Dead Flowers (The Rolling Stones cover) Special guest Mike McCready!! Easy Street Records, Seattle, Washington - April 21, 2012 - Record Store Day - 100.7 WOLF

A NEW TWIST ON FEEL THAT FIRE

I know there are tons of raving reviews out there right now on Dierks' new Feel That Fire CD (and I for one am rightly pleased!), but this one had a little different spin. Enjoy!



Is Dierks Bentley trying for some pop crossover?
Published Saturday February 28th, 2009

Mainstream commercial country music has some shining stars, and one of them is Dierks Bentley. His fourth studio album Feel That Fire could be interpreted as his stab at some pop crossover as well.

For example, the album begins with a guitar effect straight out of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love to kick into the lead track Life On The Run. As Bentley establishes a mid-tempo groove, it is above all else a mainstream pop tune. This is despite the country spices in the instrumentation and storyline of a solitary rambler.

This transition is a very east one for the Arizona-born Bentley. His early years were honed with country soil, and always conjured up images of the Merle Haggard/Waylon Jennings school. However, he has always managed to straddle on terrain outside those country roots.

At his best on this album, as in his career of the decade, Bentley is a songwriter in the broadest sense. His voice could safely fit in any genre, being the polar opposite of a trademark country twang.

That said, Bentley's ultimate foundation is the country genre itself. Spices are always there - steel guitar in the love anthem with a pop beat Feel That Fire and the mid-tempo groover You Hold Me Together, banjo at the end of the work-week tale Sideways, Tex Mex in the love lament I Can't Forget Her.

In all cases, his able lyrics match his melodies in basic country genre storylines.

The 12-song album has a few traditional country moments, and they are collaborations. One is in songwriting, as Bentley teamed up with Rodney Crowell to write the anthem Pray. Bentley also duets with Patty Griffin on the waltz Beautiful World. The album closer is Last Call, a bluegrass romp with Ronnie McCoury and his band.

Whether Bentley reaches beyond his considerable country fan base with this album remains to be seen. Regardless, he has delivered something that will keep his bread and butter audience rightly pleased.

Fredericton-based freelance writer Wilfred Langmaid has reviewed albums in The Daily Gleaner since 1981, and is a past judge for both the Junos and the East Coast Music Awards. His column appears each Saturday.

Source: http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/rss/article/587521

ESPN, NASCAR, SOUNDS OF DIERKS

If you're watching (or listening to) ESPN2 right now, you may notice that in between the rounds of the Nationwide Series race at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, you hear the sounds of Dierks Bentley! Every time they cut to commercial, they play a 3 second Feel That Fire, Sideways, Life On The Run, or believe it or not, Better Believer! All new songs from his Feel That Fire album, released 2/3/09.
Curiosity got the better of me, so I googled ESPN, Motorsports, and I searched for "dierks." Here (in part) is what I found:

Sights and sounds from Daytona
Saturday, February 7, 2009 | Print Entry

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A few sights and sounds from the Sprint Cup garage after a crazy night at Daytona International Speedway:

There's Tony Stewart talking to Hendrick Motorsports management about the engines they supply him at Stewart-Haas Racing, the ones that helped the two-time Cup champion to a third-place finish in the Budweiser Shootout.

There's fourth-place finisher Jeff Gordon giving advice to runner-up Jamie McMurray about the final two laps of the green-white-checkered finish, won by Kevin Harvick after a last-lap push from Denny Hamlin.

There's team owner Jack Roush walking past the NASCAR hauler, probably wondering whether there's something he could question officials about on the finish that saw McMurray's attempt to block Harvick fail.

There's country music star Dierks Bentley giving a postrace concert to the thin crowd that, for a cool winter night, forgot the tough economic times to watch the NASCAR season unfold.

And, ESPN.com blogger Marty Smith added a side note after his "A big Daytona Letdown?" blog: Song of the week: "Better Believer," Dierks Bentley. I feel like that a lot. Listen to it, you'll understand.

With all this dierksness in NASCAR, can't you just see Dierks singing, "...gonna get a little bit sideways" with NASCAR cars sliding sideways in the foreground, and Danica Patrick, with her long, dark hair (like all the leading ladies in DB's videos), "...I can see you came to rock in your blue jeans and white tank top...", (I know, I know, she's an IRL driver, but it could happen!). Sounds like a video in the making for Dierks' new single, Sideways, doesn't it?

DIERKS MOST SOLID OVERALL EFFORT

Have you ever heard of Today's Country Magazine? Me neither--until today! I just stumbled upon the website while on facebook, then one of my friends became a fan of Country Music Is Love, so that reminded me to click there and check out all the new country music news (yes--there are other artists besides Dierks!), and then I noticed they had a "favorite pages" section on their facebook page. Well, that got me curious, so I had to click "See All." Once there, I had to scroll down and see if dierks.com was there and all of sudden Dierks' unforgettable face caught my eye--Today's Country Magazine. What a web I went through to get there, but check it out!
TCMs take: "Just give one spin to tracks like album opener “Life On The Run,” “Sideways,” where he mentions that famous little white tank top, or the honky-tonkin’ styled “Here She Comes, Here We Go,” or “Little Heartwrecker,” and I dare you to try and sit still. Wrap all of this around a great song about how the world isn’t such a bad place that features an outstanding guest vocal from Patti Griffin on “Beautiful World,” and the hot rising single “Feel That Fire,” and Dierks Bentley has put together arguably his most solid overall effort thus far."

See the entire raving review at todayscountrymag.com.

DIERKS REVS IT UP IN DAYTONA

How does country music and NASCAR go together? That was just one of the questions at the Question and Answer session with Dierks Bentley on February 7, 2009 at the Daytona International Speedway. According to Dierks Bentley, they're a natural fit. A lot of NASCAR fans also love country music. And many of the singers and drivers are good ole boys who have formed friendships and an appreciation for each others' talents over the years.

I am so glad I spent the extra money to get the Dierks Bentley Special Offer package. Not only did we get to experience the ARCA race and the Budweiser Shootout race, but the special VIP passes gave us front row access to the Q&A, the pre-race concert and the post race concert.

My husband and I enjoyed the practice prior to the ARCA race and the people sitting behind us in the grand stands were wondering who was performing, so my husband told them "Dierks Bentley", and the girl said, "ooooo I really like him!" So he reached in his bag and gaver her one of my dbcongress business cards and started talking about the website--I was shocked he beat me to it!

I met up with Cora and Renee while my husband enjoyed the ARCA race. We were the only one's in the Q&A tent for the longest time--we were front and center. We were getting worried nobody would show up, but about 5 minutes before D was to be there, we looked back and the whole tent was full! Yeah! I had made up some business cards with the fan club and dbcongress.com website on them and placed them in the empty chairs (the new visitors to this site the next day was higher than any other day!). People were asking questions like "Are you going to sing?" - People--there were signs all over the place pre-race show/post-race concert!

One guy stood up and said he was the Bud distributor truck driver and wanted to know when Dierks was going to crack open that can of Bud Light at his feet by his stool--so he did.

The local DJ who was interviewing Dierks said, these ladies in the front row came all the way from Tampa--and he points to me and says, yeah I see Ronna and a lot of my fan club in the front row there. I asked the question, "Tell us about the Wubba Nub Girl song in the liner notes of your new album" He started to answer but raised the beer up to his mouth thinking it was the mic and started to talk. Everybody laughed. He explained something about the pacifier I think and that he wrote a song about it for his daughter. I asked him to sing a few lines, he said "No, that's a song only for Evie!" Oh well, I tried! The DJ had said to me earlier, I bet you don't care about the cars, you're just here for Dierks and I said "you're right!"

After the Q&A the ARCA race was just ending so we stood by the gate to go down on the track to the infield for the pre-race show.

We were dead center, but the stage was pretty high. They backed us up about 2 feel, telling us the "fire" would be coming out of these contraptions all across the stage--which it never did. But when I saw the DVR later, it was cool they way they had Dierks singing Feel That Fire and introducing the drivers with fire surrounding them. What they did not show on TV was him singing Free and Easy and Life On The Run. They sounded great as always. The only issue was the tall guy to my left with his elbow nearly on my head the whole time --he was video taping all 3 songs.

Click here for a YouTube version of the FOXTV broadcast of Feel That Fire/driver introductions.

Then we went back into the stands to watch the Bud Shootout--what an exciting 75 laps! And Dierks was given the honor to recite those most famous words in Motorsports..."Gentlemen, Start...Your...Engines!" and was named the Grand Marshall, riding around the track in the pace car.

Then back across the infield we trekked to the post-race concert. I was worried because they opened the gate late, and when we got down to the stage area, there was a sea of people everywhere! Although I was happy for D to have such a huge turnout, I had no hope of getting up front. So, we walked around the back of the crowd and lo and behold there was a VIP area up front that our ticket gave us access to! So we squeezed up to the rail on Robbie's side. They played 13 songs--revving up the fans from the start with Life On The Run--I love that song! They had the whole crowd screaming and loving it!

I asked Jay for the set list afterward.

Even though it was in the 40's--good excuse to wear my DB hoodie--during the concerts it felt like 95--the whole FanZone was on fire! On our slow march to Parking Lot # 7 we were freezing but pumped up from a full day of great music, friends, and sport. It was a long day but so worth it to see Dierks three times in one day!

DIERKS SINGS THE TONIGHT SHOW

Dierks Bentley and his band of brothers performed "Life On The Run" last night on Jay Leno's The Tonight Show. The rockin' song is hopefully the next single from the new Feel That Fire album, released last week--and topped the charts right out of the box! Jay's other guests included Amy Adams (Doubt) and American Idol judge, Paula Abdul.

A couple of our DB Congress California reps--Janet and Debbie--were in the audience and gave us their view of the on-and-off camera antics.

Janet: What you couldn't see was Paula reaching for Dierks and him backing up. Not so nice to grab, Paula! Afterwards, Deb and I stood up and he looked through the lights and said "thank you" to us. We were in the first row of real seats on the end 10 feet away from him and the stage. We yelled as loud as we could when the curtain went up and he nods (don't know if you saw this on camera) and came as close as you can get to a wave with his hands busy playing. Life On The Run sounded good. Look out - there's the next single! Rod [Janzen] had a grin on his face the entire time and Robbie [Harrington] has a mic and sings along on this one. It needs everyone's voices on the back up but it sounds good. Even without the revving on the front end.

At the end they filmed some promo spots. Dierks, Jay, Amy, and Paula were standing in a line, with Amy and Paula hanging on to each other. Jays says 'we have a double date here tonight with...' but it looked like guys against girls. The next promo, he says, the girls are all dressed up and turns to D (Dierks) and says 'what happened to you?' D just looks down at himself and pantomimes 'huh?' Funny. After the promos, we yelled, he acknowledged and then Paula goes after him and he grabs both Amy (in the middle) and Paula and has someone take a picture of the three of them. He did a nice job of fending Paula off. Pretty funny to watch.

DBC Wisconsin rep, Samantha commented, "When the curtain goes up, Dierks looked nervous but it seemed like when he saw some familiar faces he felt really comfortable!"

Debbie: I totally agree that it makes him feel better to look out and see familiar faces in the audience. Not just a bunch of people who don't even know who he is! We did have a blast at the show. Jay never does interviews with any musicians because he never leaves enough time for that! Maybe he will on his new show! When he took his camera after the show and took a picture of himself with Amy and Paula was funny! I think it might have been his video camera and we may see it on dierks.com when he posts all his little shots of himself doing his album release stuff. Anyway, it was great and we were very happy he noticed us and thanked us for coming.

Thanks for representing the DB Congress, ladies, and supporting our president!

You can watch the whole 42 minute show here, or just fast forward to the 38 minute mark.

DIERKS NEW GUITAR TABS

I don't pretend to know anything at all about playing guitar, but I am guessing there are a lot of Dierks fans who do! So I hope you will be interested in the new tabs for some of the songs from the new album like, Better Believer, I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes, Pray, Sideways and Life On The Run. Click here two full pages on CountryTabs.com of Dierks song tabs and lyrics!