Photo by Blake Hannon

On the football field of Bearcat Stadium in Maryville, under overcast skies, a group of young gun country artists didn't have to suit up in pads to be cheered on like the home team.

The Full Throttle Tour with Dierks Bentley, Bucky Covington and Luke Bryan came to Maryville Wednesday night, packing the home side of the stands with about 3,000 people with a few hundred more down on the field. The mostly college-aged crowd, dressed in a mix of ball caps, cowboy hats and boots and the occasional plaid western shirt, may have been tempted to check out the show for the low ticket prices ($15 for general public, $5 for students), but they weren't seeing it out of sheer boredom. Almost everyone there was a fan of Dierks or guys he shared the stage with.

After a half-an-hour set from Luke Bryan (which I unfortunately missed), "American Idol" season five finalist Bucky Covington took the stage wearing a black mechanic shirt and immediately went behind a slew of auxillary percussion instruments to begin the opening number. Oops, that's Bucky's twin brother Rocky, but the crowd cheered like it was his much more well-known brother. I bet that gets old after a while.

When Bucky took the stage for his 30-minute set, he came out with the high school football southern rocker "American Friday Night" that seemed all-too-fitting given the concert's setting. He seemed intent on showcasing his rock n' roll side while embracing his "Idol" beginnings with fairly solid results. Throughout the set, Bucky's voice sounded a tad raspy and fatigued, but when he would bust out a respectable vocal run, you quickly learned that it was a natural effect. His sweet how-we-grew-up ballad "A Different World" got most of the ladies on the field swooning and singing along while his unexpected take on Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" came off much better than one would expect.

But Bucky had no intent of distancing himself from the show that got him to that stage in the first place. He asked crowd if they had seen "Idol" and jokingly said he had seen it too, "especially that one season." His "Idol" tendencies bled into his performance a little bit, and with a cover of Elvis Presley's "Suspicous Minds" and taking a seat on stage for the performance of the boring ballad "I'll Walk," it was easy to imagine Randy Jackson popping out in the crowd to shout "That wasn't hot, dawg!"

Despite moments of schmaltz, with a natural charisma and ear-to-ear grin, it was hard to imagine he would have to spend much more time outrunning his "Idol" association.

With a few scarce rain drops falling from the sky, chants for "we want Dierks" began. They wouldn't have to wait that long.

Dierks Bentley took the stage around 9 p.m. with the Tom Petty-esque "Trying to Stop Your Leaving" and got the kind of elation a hometown hero might receive.

And Bentley made extra effort to let the people know he saw them, too; pointing out members of the crowd in the midst of striking Bono-like lead singer poses.

Unlike Bono, Bentley has not an ounce of pretense, playing guitar most of his songs while running around the ramps on stage and bantering with the band the way Garth Brooks probably did in his heyday.

Nearly everyone was singing along to all of Bentley's songs, which isn't hard to believe since he's put together an endless string of country radio hits since debuting in 2003. Hits like the kiss-off honkey tonk tune "How Am I Doin,'" the slow and powerfully reflective "Long Trip Alone" and the sweet and sensual ballad "Come A Little Closer," in which he brought a school volunteer to lead the crowd in a sing along while locking arms with her for a crazy on stage spin straight out of "Grease," hit all the right notes. But other lesser known songs like "My Last Name," where Bentley and his guitarist played an unplugged set, gave a sense of unexpected intimacy to the outdoor stage.

Throughout the show, the youthful energy was high (there were a few crowd-surfing spottings) and the girls in the audience were going bonkers, getting on guys' shoulders for a better view and throwing a couple of bras on stage, in which Bentley proclaimed "Wow, the party's really getting started now, boy!"

The only time that the set seemed to lose steam was when he and his backing band The Grascals clustered together for a couple of bluegrass tunes like "Prodigal Son's Prayer." But with the one-two punch of two recent hits "Every Mile A Memory" and "Free and Easy (Down The Road I Go)" to close it out, that tiresome feeling went away fast.

The inevitable encore provided the highlight of the night within the opening notes of his first hit "What Was I Thinkin'" (otherwise known as the "white tank top" song), which prompted a few women to take off their shirts to proudly show off their tank tops and caused everyone else to just get down. He brought Covington back out on stage with him to perform Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," which was a tad disappointing way to end it, considering it's such an easy move to get a college crowd amped up.

But what I walked away with was why Bentley was so darn mesmerizing. While his vocal abilities are relatively low-key and unobtrusive, it leaves room for solid songwriting and arrangements that mix bluegrass, honkey tonk and pop to come to the forefront. He puts a modern spin on his old time influences, and coupled with a humble personality built to befriend and entertain, it leaves a lot that a listener could like in a live performance.

He said during the show that he wanted everyone to meet him at Burny's Sports Bar in Maryville since there was no alcohol allowed at the show. The funny part is, you not only believed he would be there, you wanted to show up.