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Honestly, Live at Texas Stadium was a surprisingly good listen.  Recorded on May 29, 2004 in Dallas, this superstar concert features George Strait, Alan Jackson, and Jimmy Buffett performing some of their most well-known hits together.  This concert, which was years in the making, brings together three artists that have racked up 85 Number One singles and sold, collectively, over 120 million albums.  That’s a lot of platinum.

It’s apparent as the live album opens up that you are experiencing the whooping and hollering of thousands of drunken fans there to simultaneously cheer on three of their most beloved, good time heroes.  It made me want to raise a plastic cup of Bud myself, just listening to that sloppy stadium.  This concert was meant to definitely be a beer swilling set; made obvious by the track listing:  “Margaritaville”, “Five O’Clock Somewhere”, and “Designated Drinker.”

The most surprising aspect of Live at Texas Stadium was the part I thought was going to be the weakest; Jimmy Buffett.  Granted, he’s had his fair share of hits and an army of Parrotheads, but I just always thought he was what drunks never to be labored with challenging psyche listened to regularly when they got tanked.  The studio Buffett always irritated me as I would certainly hear him droning about losing his salt shaker at least once a night at all my favorite dive-bars or beach getaways.  His stereotypically stale presence in my life prior to this album was given a jolt by his mid-concert wake-up call between George Strait and Alan Jackson’s sets.  I don’t believe the Coral Reefer Band has ever sounded more filled out than on these few live songs.  “Hey Good Lookin’” and “North East Texas Woman” were easily the best songs on this concert disc.  Not because they were the best songs of the three artists(George Strait’s music is as country as Gene Autry), but because they conveyed that fabled Jimmy Buffett live experience I’d only heard about for years.

As for George Strait, well, it’s always high time for “All My Ex’s Live in Texas.”  He delivers a handful of classics but doesn’t manage to come across that strong against Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band.  For that matter, Alan Jackson has the same problem as he wraps the concert up with his medley of hits, including “Texas Women” and “Where I Come From.”  What you got here is the meat of the Coral Reefer Band being too much to make a balanced concert sandwich with.  George Strait’s sound, which is meant to be enjoyed live, is simply less flamboyant than Jimmy Buffet’s brand of “lush” arrangements.  Alan Jackson, with that blueprint country voice, is also a kinder, less jubilant experience that comes off meeker than it should in the shadow of Jimmy Buffett’s performance.

Essentially, Live at Texas Stadium has three equally amazing parts.  However, put together and in the specific order they were, the performances detract from one another.  Had George Strait and Alan Jackson performed first, leaving Jimmy Buffett for the encore, this album would have been weighted properly.  But, you know, in the end, I don’t think any of that raving crowd at Texas Stadium that day would have noticed such things as I’ve been criticizing myself.  The sound of the crowd let you know that night of May 29th 2004 was pure electricity and a spectacle to behold for every bar-hopping, margarita-sipping, denim-wearing fan in a one-mile radius.  If this album does anything completely right, it’s the ability to make you feel bad you missed such a concert and that you’ll surely never miss the chance again.