Country star Dierks Bentley unites adoring Midwest fans

About 2,200 people streamed through the IU Auditorium’s doors Saturday night to see country singer Dierks Bentley perform.\nSome donned cowboy hats and boots, others covered their bodies with Bentley fan ware, and groups of female fans came dressed for the bars. Fans came from across several states and from across campus, but they seemed to share one attitude, which was perhaps best summarized by the message on 19-year-old Hannah Wirth’s neon pink poster: “We love Dierks.”\n“He has so much talent because he writes all of his songs, plays the guitar and has an amazing voice. And he’s good looking,” said Wirth, a freshman at Malone College who made the six-hour road trip from Canton, Ohio, to see Bentley perform on her birthday. “I love him live.”\nBentley attracted an array of college students and adults who danced through his two-hour performance, plus opening act Jason Boland and the Stragglers’ performance. And afterward, they begged for an encore. \nBentley’s success at IU could be because he has played at both the Bluebird and Axis, now known as Jake’s. Or it could be attributed to several enthusiastic members of his fan club, who comprised one of the crowd’s loudest contingents.\nJackie Jeffries, a 45-year-old gas station manager from Galion, Ohio, attended her 65th Bentley show when she saw him perform Saturday. She went to her first concert in the fall of 2003 and traveled with fan-club members on their “three shows in three days” campaign this week, which started in Toledo, crossed the Indiana border to Fort Wayne and ended in Bloomington. But Jeffries said this wasn’t her first time following Bentley.\n“In 2004 we did four shows in four days,” said Jeffries, who sported a Bentley T-shirt and a variety of fan pins. “... I just wave. If he sees me, he points. He knows who I am.”\nStill, IU students were able to rival the enthusiasm of his fan club. Junior Jamie Minick brought her friend, Kathryn Herb, a junior at Valparaiso University, and both girls said they want to see him live again.\n“He was very enthusiastic and high-energy,” Minick said. “Just seeing him jumping around having fun and going crazy made me excited.”\nBentley said the audience’s energy fuels his performance.\n“The goal of live shows is to have a spiritual feeling (and let the audience) experience a wide range of emotions,” he said. “... The fun we have on stage goes out to the audience and comes back to us.”\nBentley will be performing at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival this June in Manchester, Tenn.\nBentley said he has tried to capture the unique feeling of a live show on his latest album, “Long Trip Alone.” He said he has tried to write better songs and “thread” the energy of a live show throughout the album.\nRegardless of Bentley’s fan-charming tactics, Union Board Concerts Director Adam Soiref said he was impressed with the singer’s ability to pack in a diverse audience. He said he was happy to see the Union Board was able to bring in someone who attracted fans across the state and country. The concert’s success has shown that country artists could become a valuable addition to the Board's concert lineup, which hasn’t featured a country artist in years, Soiref said.\n“I hope future concert directors will see this show and see that country is a popular genre, and that they’ll continue the trend and book country artists in future,” Soiref said.