New three-day country music festival debuts in Vegas

Dee Jay Silver, a DJ in both namesake and profession, remembers when country music in a Las Vegas nightclub was comparable to deep conversations and shallow pockets: This wasn’t the place for any of them.

Silver’s performed in Las Vegas for 10 years now, first at now-shuttered nightspots such as Rain, Tabu and Studio 54, and he shares the talk he’d often get prior to his set: “‘All right, man, I know you’re going to play country, just keep it to a minimum,” he recalls.

That was then.

Fast forward to this past April.

“They turned Body English, The Ling Ling Lounge at Hakkasan, Wet Republic and Rehab country just for me to play at. Crazy, right?”

The organizers of the Route 91 Harvest festival don’t think so.

They’re betting big on country music’s pull in Las Vegas with a three-day outdoor fest headlined by a trio of the genre’s current top stars: Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton.

The rest of the lineup, which spans more than two-dozen acts, pairs more venerable names like Neal McCoy and Dwight Yoakam with ascendant artists like Brantley Gilbert, Tyler Farr and Dustin Lynch.

Country music has long been a big seller — nobody has sold more records over the past three decades than Garth Brooks and few have sold more concert tickets than George Strait.

But one thing country hasn’t always been: cool.

And that’s perhaps the biggest change between the current crop of rising country stars and their predecessors, a hipness abetted by a much more pronounced willingness to not just incorporate musical influences outside of the genre — country’s long done that — but more contemporary, youthful sounds, be it hip-hop, hard rock, pop or even electronic dance music.

“I think country’s in a really good spot right now,” says Lynch, a neo-traditionalist whose current single, “Where It’s At,” the title track of his recently released sophomore record, has spent weeks atop the charts. “We’re able to bring in a lot of outside influences from other genres into our music just because there’s really no walls up. There’s so many different types of music that country radio is open to playing. That’s why we’re seeing the fan base grow so much and also seeing new festivities such as this one pop up. There’s a demand for them.”

Not only is country broadening its base, then, but it’s also bridging a key generational gap.

“I have definitely seen the audience get younger in country music,” Silver notes.

Silver’s a testament to as much, becoming the first country DJ to earn a record deal, releasing an EP of country mash-ups, “Country Club,” last year.

Silver’s toured with country stars for the past four years, beginning with Jason Aldean and most recently Brad Paisley.

He’ll be performing all three days at Route 91 Harvest.

“Country music is not lonely dudes and ugly girlfriends. It’s drinking. It’s party music,” Silver says. “I think people are realizing that country is the new cool. It’s so cool to see other DJs now start to put up country mixes, whereas just four years ago, people were like, ‘You’re an idiot for playing country music.’ ”

Lynch underscores Silver’s point by sharing an anecdote from the spring, the last time he was in Las Vegas.

He had a few hours of downtime, and decided to meet with a few of his buddies at a hotel pool party at their suggestion.

“I’m like, ‘Perfect, I’ll go over there, hang out at the pool, nobody will have a clue who I am and I’ll get to relax for a minute,’ ” he recalls. “Lo and behold, just about everybody there was a country music fan. I was thinking that at a Vegas DJ pool party I wouldn’t really be recognized and I could just a disappear for a minute. That was really an eye-opening experience for me.”

As country music increasingly becomes the life of the party, though, there have been some constants.

Brantley Gilbert, who’s penned his share of drinking tunes, including his biggest hit, “Bottoms Up,” still sounds taken aback by the reception he and his band received when they first toured the Pacific Northwest and big Northern cities.

He marvels at how the culture has spread — and how plenty of it has remain unchanged.

“When we play New York City, there’s jacked-up trucks in Times Square,” he chuckles. “It’s hilarious.”

And then his laughter subsides.

“Country music, it’s everywhere.”

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.