By: Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Visitors to Friday night’s Bratwurst Festival were ready to rock in a country type way as country music artist Aaron Tippin took the FC Bank stage.
Hundreds of people packed into the FC Bank parking lot, while many more looked on from Sandusky Avenue as Aaron Tippin roared through 24 years of hits.
Wearing a blue under armor shirt and backwards baseball cap, Tippin got the crowd jumping and clapping from the beginning with “Ready to Rock.”
“This song started it all. It kicked off my career 24 years ago. The first thing I did was entertained the troops and since then I have wrote a lot of songs about the military,” Tippin said to the crowd, as he introduced “You Got to Stand for Something”
Prior to going into his first number one hit “Blue Angel,” Tippin explained that the record company was a little leery to release the song as a single.
“I had a desire to bring yodeling back to country blues. Every night we would perform it the crowd would go Crazy,” Tippin said. “My record company RCA said it was too Country, but I told them that I wanted it to be the first single off the album. It became the first country song to feature a yodel in 40 years. It was my most fan driven song.”
While performing the song “Working Man’s PHD,” Tippin constructed a bike on stage which was then presented to the U.S. Marines for the Toys for Tots program.
Tammy Furr, who attended the show with her husband Rory, felt that this point of the show was her favorite.
“When he put the bike together and the marine carried it off, I thought that was great. It was a good idea, it got everyone going, and I thought it was real sweet of him to do that,” Tammy explained.
“I enjoyed the whole show, it was great,” Rory said.
Tippen closed out his set at the Bratwurst Festival with Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong with the Radio.”
After a few minutes of anticipation Tippin returned to the stage with a guitar emblazoned with the American flag as fans were treated to an encore of “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagles Fly.”
Tippin finished his show at the Bratwurst Festival with his most recent number one hit “Kiss This.”
“My Favorite part of the show was “Kiss This” I was the mad woman up there with the T-shirt, and he winked at me. I love Aaron Tippin and I love that song,” Vanessa Schifer said.
“It was my first time seeing him and it was by far my favorite Bratwurst Festival concert,” Tracey Gamble said.