Dickerson has his moments, just not enough of them

Russell Dickerson launched his Big Wheels & Back Roads tour stop with the title of the tour. The fast-paced, high energy delivery was the perfect start of the night.

The song and the follow-up, "All the Same Friends," also was about as country as Dickerson would get on over the course of 1 3/ 4 hours. The lanky singer may be considered part of country – at least for marketing purposes – but there wasn't a lot of country music to be heard from Dickerson.

So, Dickerson and his backing band rocked pretty well, although they were more effective on the toned down hit "God Gave Me a Girl."

The problem was that as hard as Dickerson may have tried, there just weren't enough quality songs there. He does have four chart toppers to his credit ("Every Little Thing" and the closing "Blue Tacoma" stood up well).

Too many sounded too generic ("I Wonder") and lacking any sort of identity. One song rolled into another with leaving much of a musical impact.

Instead of trotting out the two opening performers – Restless Road and Parmalee – merely to share drinks with him on "It's About Time," Dickerson would have been far better off to employ their talents to actually perform together and doing something more with the anthemic quality of the singalong with lines like "it's about time for a drink/it's about time for a cold one." A missed opportunity.

Dickerson changed it up a bit with a summer theme on a few songs including "Ride the Wave" and "FLOAT" from his recently released EP. This was a night more about the vibe (the joyous and sonically lighter "Every Little Thing") and good times.

The staging worked well, particularly with the use of backing videos, augmenting the songs a bit more. What didn't work as well was Dickerson's cut-off sweatshirt where he showed off his muscles throughout the night and often stuck out his tongue. Maybe that's Dickerson's way of showing his excitement. Yet, It all seemed a bit much.

This was a concert that had its moments – just not enough of them.