Louisiana born singer-songwriter Jordan Davis has had a busy summer in 2024, in addition to his own headline tour – the Damn Good Time World Tour – Davis has been opening up for Luke Combs on Combs’ stadium tour.
Quickly rising vocalist Ashley Cooke got things started on Thursday night with a 30 minute set of songs drawn mostly from her two studio albums. She opened with “Getting Into” from her 2023 album Shot in the Dark, all smiles from the first note, Cooke’s bubbly energy was a warm welcome for the earliest arriving fans as they got their drinks and took their seats. A few songs later, Cooke introduced her song “it’s been a year” by speaking about the year of success she’s experienced, gaining a growing fan base and taking home a CMT Award amongst other things.
Cooke took a moment to acknowledge her influences during set, doing so in the form of a medley of some songs she grew up on. Playing snippets of Hillary Duff’s “Come Clean,” Avril’s “Complicated,” “Life is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts and surprisingly enough Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” she took the audience on a tour of her musical influences. Her set ended with her award winning single “your place,” her biggest song to date, that’s garnered over 40mil streams on Spotify alone.
Up next was Mitchell Tenpenny, a Nashville native who has also been on the Luke Combs tour with Jordan Davis throughout the summer. Tenpenny’s setlist was drawn from two of his first four albums, as well as four songs off his upcoming album The 3rd. Tenpenny’s songs are particularly good for sing-a-longs, such as “We Got History” which he chose to kick off his set. He followed that up with a pair of songs from the soon to be released record, “Bigger Mistakes” and “Not Today” both of which have been released as singles ahead of the record.
Later in his set he played his popular song “Bitches” which he paused to clarify to the crowd was “NOT about calling women bitches” but rather about people that are difficult to deal with. He snuck in a cover of Tupac’s “California Love” right after performing his hit “Alcohol You Later” which was another song that lead the crowd into a sing-a-long. Tenpenny closed out his set with a seamless combo of his hit “Drunk Me” into a cover of the Goo Goo Dolls classic “Iris” which inspired the Boston crowd to take out their cellphones and light them up.
Jordan Davis took the stage shortly after 9pm, with the sold out Boston crowd ready to party. His Damn Good Time tour comes in support of Davis’ 2023 album Bluebird Days. Davis’ second studio album, Bluebird Days debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 and achieved platinum status in just over a year. Appropriately opening with “Damn Good Time” the tour’s namesake, Davis established the tone for a fun, whiskey swirling night.
Davis would end up addressing the Boston crowd quite a few times during set breaks, his first anecdote came before “Banks,” a NEEDTOBREATHE song on which Davis was featured, he mentioned it being a song he wished he had written. He decided that he would introduce his band early on in his set, something atypical as most artists do that at the end of the night. Davis however conveyed that he wanted to share his stage with his band, not just leave them as a backup band.
Before playing “Next Thing You Know” Davis talked about his three children, including that one of his two sons had just turned three the day prior to the concert. He also talked about a local connection, to a producer named Paul DiGiovanni once from the Boston based pop punk band Boys Like Girls. Davis recorded his debut album Home State with DiGiovanni which he released in 2018. He played a medley of songs from the album “Leaving New Orleans,” “Going Round” and “Selfish” giving each song a bout a minute and a half.
Davis took a detour from his own music for a short set of covers that he introduced as being on a CD he burned in 2007, during the mini set he played songs by Gavin DeGraw, The Fray and Maroon 5, the latter of which he let guitarist Jonathon Jircitano take over lead vocal duties. Ashley Cooke joined the jam for a cover of the Miranda Lambert classic “Gunpowder and Lead” and then Mitchell Tenpenny joined the party of Davis, his band, and Cooke for blink-182’s “All the Small Things.”
Getting back to his own material Davis performed “What My World Spins Around” and “Slow Dance in a Parking Lot” a pair of love songs from Bluebird Days and Home State respectively. He introduced his song “Part of It” with a dedication to the farmers of America and their immense work ethic. Before the final two songs of his set Davis described how he doesn’t like to do the encore dance and instead opts to just play right through and fit in that extra song or two.
The crowd gave Davis a rousing ovation as he took his bows to end the night, with “Smooth” by Santana ft. Rob Thomas playing over the house mix, as the fans danced out of the venue it looked like they all agreed that Jordan Davis did indeed show them a Damn Good Time.
Jordan Davis
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Mitchell Tenpenny
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