Tim McGraw delivers country hits at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena

There are country music superstars and then there's Tim McGraw.

A dozen years ago, the artist with ten chart-topping country albums toured stadiums across America with Kenny Chesney. On Thursday evening, a euphoric Bridgestone Arena was blistered with the impact of a show presented at a size and sound capable of working six blocks away across the Cumberland River at Nissan Stadium.

Accompanying the power chords of his 2013-released top-10 single "Truck Yeah" with stentorian drum kicks would be one thing. But then, there's McGraw's silhouette surrounded by a glowing red screen on a panoramic, 105-foot wide by 26-foot tall LED screen and a laser show blinding enough to rival Kane Brown, Lil Wayne, Bon Jovi, or Tiesto at their touring heights.

The cinema and drama aren't presented for a song about hearing Lil Wayne's "6 Foot 7 Foot" booming through a dark blue Ford F-150's subwoofers before a weekend dominated by "Friday night football, Saturday last call, Sunday hallelujah."

Yes, country music is most assuredly about the song. However, very few artists have parlayed their song styling into a quarter century of work as actors in films grossing over a half-billion dollars at the box office.

Thus, when McGraw performs songs like "Just To See You Smile," "Where The Green Grass Grows" and "Standing Room Only" -- the 2023 hit that titles his most recent album and current concert tour -- an impressive transference occurs.

McGraw connects, brings out an impressive special guest

Imagine that "Friday Night Lights"' Charles Billingsley and "1883"'s James Dillard Dutton are paired with Faith Hill's husband and a father of three, plus a country music crooner who has played well over 1,000 concerts in 25 years and had 90 percent of his hits in the top 10 of the genre's Billboard charts.

The songs connect differently.

Regardless of genre, great songs test an artist's ability to believe, not just the lyrics themselves. Instead, when delivering those songs' hooks and choruses, it's in metaphorically attaching them to your heartstrings and knowing they'll soar that makes them achieve extraordinary renown.

Concerning this notion, McGraw, though turning 57 in less than a week, is still ever the athlete.

At moments like performing his 1995 classic, "I Like It, I Love It," he approached the precision required to convey maximum passion through song as if he were his father, Tug McGraw, one pitch away from recording the final out of the 1980 World Series against the Kansas City Royals.

Mixing sports metaphors, "I Like It, I Love It" is so catchy that, in Nashville, it has served as the song played when the National Hockey League's Nashville Predators score at home in the same Bridgestone Arena in which he was performing.

Of course, because it's NHL playoff season and the Predators are in the hunt, on Thursday evening, McGraw brought out the Stanley Cup and offered his well wishes to the home team in their current series against the Vancouver Canucks.

McGraw showcases a mastery of his craft

At that moment, you realize that he will probably play a different song every four minutes and 20 songs in roughly 95 minutes onstage overall. In 25 percent less time, he's accomplished 75 percent more than most of his contemporaries as chart-topping country stars of the past three decades.

Dig in deep and realize that there's something to the notion that Tim McGraw isn't just singing country music. Instead, he's created a country-to-mainstream monoculture unto himself. There's a Western cowboy, a Southern soul crooner and a humble, kind husband and father present.

All three of these archetypes are the main characters in life as a play that has unfolded with as much perfect sculpting as many in attendance would believe McGraw still applies to maintaining his physique.

At a point early in the concert, McGraw performs a snippet of his 20-year-old country-to-hip-hop-to-pop crossover hit Nelly duet "Over and Over" that blends seamlessly into his mid-tempo 2007 track "Shotgun Rider."

A five-minute moment has spanned St. Louis hip-hop to countrified Los Angeles-inspired rock.

Almost 20,000 people—many of whom, if asked, aren't fans of any other rappers or, on the other side, probably don't consider The Eagles a country band—never stopped bobbing their heads and waving their hands in appreciation.

Dig even deeper and the father and husband appear when realizing that his openers were Texas-born country artist Abby Anderson and Grammy-winning country star Carly Pearce or that he performed soulful songs "One Bad Habit" and "Watch The Wind Blow By" to honor his wife, Faith Hill, plus playing the music video for his 2013 Taylor Swift and Keith Urban collaboration "Highway Don't Care" as a way to honor Swift's burgeoning mega-stardom.

McGraw, empathetically aware of the power of sharing his stage with prospective female role models and stars, impressively softens his towering humanity before the night's most stunning moment: the encore.

A stunning encore

Instead of the house lights coming on or the set's well-articulated lighting schemes being eschewed for spotlights, an overture was heard, and a well-lit, panoramic LED screen introduction highlighting key McGraw scenes from "1883" highlighted his performance of 2001's "The Cowboy In Me."

The edges blurred between the actor and the man at that point.

"Humble and Kind" was followed by an acapella encore, with the crowd heartily singing along, if only because the entire building knew that 2004's "Live Like You Were Dying"—a song that inarguably re-set the expectation of earnest songwriting and raw emotions and involving a solo performance by McGraw that would be worth the cost of the ticket alone—was next.

Impressively, McGraw still performs the Single of the Year and Song of the Year at the 2004 Country Music Association Awards and the 2004 Academy of Country Music Awards, as well as the 2004 Grammy winner for Best Country Song as if he's having a conversation about how his father's cancer journey impacted him while leaving enough space for your own life and stories to own emotional real estate in the song.

As the evening ended, like again, the athlete that appeared in various formats throughout the evening, McGraw pumped his fist and pounded his chest to symbolize that not just he had successfully performed another concert. Instead, it was as if we, together, as a team, had victoried for country music, America, the community we had created for two hours and hopefully in gaining the perspective, via his concert, to continue to struggle and succeed at living our most fulfilled lives.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tim McGraw impressively delivers country hits at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena