Morgan Wallen moves past scandal at tour kickoff at Milwaukee's American Family Field

Well, it sure looks like Morgan Wallen played his cards right — even though one could argue it still feels wrong.

Two years after Wallen was caught in a viral video using a racial slur — temporarily sidelining his career, although his album at the time, "Dangerous," remained at No. 1 for several weeks — the country star again has the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, for five weeks and counting, last month's "One Thing at a Time." And he just scored his first Hot 100 chart-topping single, "Last Night."

And he's the first artist to headline two consecutive nights of stadium concerts in Milwaukee.

Wallen kicked off the North American leg of his "One Night at a Time" tour with the first show Friday at American Family Field.

This is Wallen's first tour in which he's headlining stadiums — often, across multiple nights in multiple cities. Friday was Wallen's second stadium-headlining show ever.

"This is an honor and a privilege," Wallen told the ecstatic capacity crowd of 40,000-plus Friday. "This is something that we've worked extremely hard for for a long time."

It's privilege, all right. The Chicks and Janet Jackson didn't bounce back with blockbuster albums and singles and play the biggest venues of their careers two years after being canceled.

Spot some differences?

In fairness, Wallen apologized multiple times, and USA TODAY confirmed that he fulfilled a pledge to donate $500,000 to Black-serving organizations. But while Wallen didn't play the victim or stoke a culture war after he was caught, he's not using his massive platform to raise awareness about racial issues either. Long-overdue conversations continue in Nashville about the need for greater diversity in country music, but Wallen, disappointingly, isn't leading them.

Not that anyone would have expected him to do that at his tour kickoff, which was happening in Milwaukee, Wallen suggested, because he wanted to go where people drink the most beer.

Pushback against the Wallen pushback may have aided "Dangerous" on the charts a little, but just as Wallen has put the controversy behind him, so have his fans.

Political motivations are not behind his most recent success. Talent is.

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That, and a whole lot of output. "One Thing at a Time" has a whopping 36 songs, which helps with streaming numbers for sure. Not every track is a success, but what it demonstrates — as "Dangerous" did — is Wallen's appealing and unusual malleability, which made a seamless transition to the stadium stage Friday.

From the smooth, neon-pop glow of "One Thing at a Time's" title track Friday, Wallen effortlessly slid into the twangy down-home country of "Everything I Love," then segued into "You Proof" and its hip-hop snare percussion; the crowd was enthralled despite (or, perhaps, because) of the sonic switch-ups.

What Friday's hour-and-50-minute concert illustrated, even more than his past two albums, is Wallen's ability to seem natural in multiple settings.

Unlike, say, Zac Brown Band dabbling in EDM, or Blake Shelton flirting with hip-hop, these aren't gimmicks. They're an extension of Wallen's interests, and the interests of Friday's millennial-dominated audience, freed from genre barriers in our streaming ecosystem.

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Honestly, Wallen's greatest muse may not be Keith Whitley, who gets multiple namechecks in his discography (including, Friday, for "Keith Whitley,"), but Post Malone, another A-lister who seems at home across styles, from pop, hip-hop and hard rock to a Hootie and the Blowfish cover.

There are similarities to how they sing, with the grit in Wallen's voice bringing character and pain to his smooth, understated tone, similar to Malone's slightly frayed warble at the center of his palpable vocals. It's so effective that Friday, Wallen's cover of sobriety confessional "Cover Me Up" was nearly as emotionally resonant as Jason Isbell's original version, despite Isbell's deeply personal connection to the material.

Wallen's low-key, everyguy demeanor doesn't work as well for stadium-scaled bombast yet. He had plenty of help for those moments Friday, whether it was his opener Hardy, who brought swagger worthy of his gold chain to their collaboration "He Went to Jared," or from an aggressive pyrotechnics team that loaded the show with enough fire for a KISS concert.

Perhaps it was nerves holding him back; it's telling that Wallen was at his loosest, tossing out some playful vocal flourishes, near the night's end for "The Way I Talk," the goofy antics of the six-piece band matching the mood.

Wallen's more modest stage presence worked well for the show's more intimate moments. And the show is designed to have several of them, from "Dying Man," about being saved from the brink of self-destruction, which Wallen dedicated to his young son; to the brokenhearted "Sand In My Boots," a flip on the usual breezy allusions that country artists conjure when singing about the beach, which Wallen accompanied with his own pretty piano melodies.

And then there was an acoustic rendition of "One Thing at a Time" track "Thought You Should Know," written as a phone call to his mother, to whom Wallen dedicated the song Friday.

"Making some bad decisions/God knows I'm drinking too much," Wallen sang Friday. "Yeah, I know you've been worrying about me/You've been losing sleep since '93."

"I thought you should know/That all those prayers you thought you wasted on me/Must've finally made their way on through."

It's the closest Wallen came through song Friday to bringing up the scandal. But a few minutes prior between songs, he seemed to vaguely address it as well, after discussing his preacher father and faith in Jesus.

"I'm also the first one to admit that I fall short," Wallen said. "I think we're all striving to be better every day."

No one besides Wallen can truly know, after what he said, if he's still striving to be better.

But Wallen's most devoted fans and harshest critics have to agree on one thing: Few artists right now are bigger.

Morgan Wallen's main opener Hardy doesn't hold back

Friday’s show will be one to remember, not just because it was the North American kickoff for Wallen’s biggest tour to date. All three of his openers seemed destined to headline arenas and amphitheaters — or possibly, like Wallen, stadiums themselves.

Hardy already has got an arena-headlining tour on the books, with a Resch Center show in Green Bay coming up Nov. 30. It’s gonna be a good one if Friday’s 56-minute set is any indication. He’s got what it takes to play the country game, evident Friday by his clever unplanned-pregnancy toe-tapper “One Beer” or the epic “God’s Country,” the hit he co-wrote for Blake Shelton.

But Hardy delights more in defying convention, like for Friday’s funny “Radio Song,” from his new album "The Mockingbird & the Crow." From catchy, country radio-ready verses accompanied Friday by pretty footage of a car cruising down a country road, the song slammed into an F-bomb-spiked, death-metal-style chorus, complete with footage Friday of an animated Satan laughing gleefully.

Hard rock and nu metal are as crucial to Hardy’s sound as country, making him an heir apparent to Kid Rock, minus the political baggage. Not that Hardy shied away from some politicizing, be it his “redneck” rallying cry during “Unapologetically Country as Hell,” or applause-generating condemnation of people who “(expletive)” on America and look down on small-town people.

But beyond riveting rock, crowd-sweeping speeches and sticky hooks, Hardy can be a heck of a songwriter. The tempo slowed for his vigilante murder ballad “Wait in the Truck,” but his soul-cleansing hollers at the end, praying for God’s mercy, was goosebump-inducing stuff. Singing that live in Green Bay alongside his duet partner and his show opener, Lainey Wilson, will be even more powerful.

Morgan Wallen's other openers, Ernest and Bailey Zimmerman, seem destined for superstardom

It’s really hard for a headliner to make a baseball stadium seem as small as a coffee shop. For an opener dealing with distracted crowds, it’s practically impossible. But damn if Ernest didn’t pull it off with the initially acoustic and solo opening for “Flower Shops,” the vastness of the room dissipating as Ernest sang of wasting the best years of a former lover’s life at the end of his half-hour set. It’s a credit more to the magnetic songwriting than to Ernest’s stage presence at present; he lost some in the crowd halfway through with his squishy love song “Tennessee Queen.” But other setlist highlights — including the Jelly Roll hit he co-wrote, “Son of a Sinner” — suggest that Ernest has the songwriting chops to repeat “Flower Shops” magic. (He also literally repeated "Flower Shops" Friday as a duet with Wallen, a highlight of Wallen's set.)

Bailey Zimmerman doesn’t even release his debut album “Religiously” until next month, but he’s already cracked the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the broken-relationship ballad “Rock and a Hard Place,” which was the heart-ripping climax of his 22-minute set Friday. Zimmerman preceded the song with a familiar speech at country shows about overcoming a seemingly aimless life with a hit song, but the passion in his performance confirmed the authenticity. He’s no one-trick-pony either, complementing the down-to-earth, Zach Bryan-esque heartache of “Rock and a Hard Place” with a couple of raging rockers, "Never Comin' Home” and “Where It Ends,” complete with Zimmerman racing around the stage and ripping off his Brewers ball cap for some whiplash-threatening head-banging. If “Religiously” lives up to the hype, and the promise of this set, Zimmerman is going to be a huge star.

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6 takeaways from Morgan Wallen's tour kickoff in Milwaukee

• Wallen was understandably extremely gracious Friday, giving multiple shout-outs not just to his bandmates and openers but the full crew. He also ended his set yelling out practically a dozen "thank yous," and he stayed on stage to sign multiple autographs for more four minutes as the band played in a loop.

• The North American tour kickoff had a couple setlist tweaks from Wallen's latest dates in New Zealand last month. New additions included "Keith Whitley" and "Sunrise," while "Somebody's Problem," "Dangerous," "Silverado for Sale" and "7 Summers" were cut. Losing "7 Summers," one of Wallen's prettiest and saddest songs, was the biggest disappointment. And considering it was one of his first crossover hits, its omission is a headscratcher.

• Wallen and all of his openers saluted Milwaukee with their wardrobe choices Saturday. Wallen busted out a Brewers jersey for the encore, as did Hardy when he joined Wallen for "He Went to Jared." Zimmerman wore a Brewers jersey too during his set, while Ernest wore a Harley-Davidson shirt when he came out during Wallen's set.

• As I drove up close to American Family Field Friday afternoon, I thought I had lucked out and wouldn’t have to wait long. Boy, was I wrong. From the moment I hit the back of the line to the moment I parked, 46 minutes passed. And lines were long to get in everywhere, although they moved pretty briskly, taking about 10 minutes or so. The wristband lines were nicely organized Friday, too, although concourses close to bathroom and concession stands on the field level were choked with people. All things to bear in mind for anyone seeing Wallen Saturday — or George Strait or Pink at American Family Field later this summer.

• I know Wallen has become a bit of a hero for some cancel-culture critics, with reports of “Let’s Go Brandon” chants and the like at past concerts. But even in the political powder keg that is Wisconsin, I saw none of that myself Friday — just fans who accepted Wallen’s apology (or didn’t care about the controversy), had moved on, and were eager to party.

• Somehow, Milwaukee lucked out in mid-April with absolutely sensational, warm and sunny weather Friday — and yet the roof remained closed. Evidently, Wallen's management made that call, according to an email from the Brewers. That’s borderline criminal.

Morgan Wallen's American Family Field setlist

1. "Up Down"

2. "I Wrote the Book"

3. "One Thing at a Time"

4. "Everything I Love"

5. "You Proof"

6. "Ain't That Some"

7. "Keith Whitley"

8. "Chasin' You"

9. "Sunrise"

10. "Dying Man"

11. "Still Goin Down"

12. "Sand in My Boots"

13. "Cover Me Up" (Jason Isbell cover)

14. "Devil Don't Know"

15. "Thought You Should Know"

16. "Flower Shops" (with Ernest)

17. "He Went to Jared" (with Hardy)

18. "Thinkin' Bout Me"

19. "Whiskey Friends"

20. "This Bar"

21. "Wasted on You"

22. "More Than My Hometown"

23. "The Way I Talk"

24. "Heartless"

25. "Last Night"

26. "Whiskey Glasses"

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Morgan Wallen moves past scandal at concert tour kickoff in Milwaukee