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Music
Hot Ticket: Rascal Flatts is riding high
By HELEN HUNTLEY
Published June 1, 2006
They may not wear cowboy hats, but Rascal Flatts rides into Tampa Saturday night with the hottest album on the country charts this year. Me and My Gang is already double platinum, and serious fans probably have memorized the words by now. The trio's fourth album is another solid effort, albeit with a strange shift in style on the funk-rock title track, where they come off as Big & Rich imitators. The album's first single, What Hurts the Most, sets the emotional tone for most of the album with its painful tale of loss (the music video that goes with it is such a gut wrencher that I have to change the channel when it plays on CMT). The close harmonies that have become the classic Rascal Flatts sound are at their finest here. Any country fan has to crack a smile at Backwards, the musical answer to an old joke: "What do you get when you play a country song backwards?" The Flatts sing: "You get your house back, you get your dog back . . . you get your truck back, you get your first and second wives back." Also noteworthy: Sarasota gets a mention in Cool Thing, set on the beach, and the band tackles the tough topic of dementia in the bittersweet Ellsworth. GRADE: B+. Rascal Flatts with Gary Allan, 8 p.m. Saturday, Ford Amphitheatre, Interstate 4 at U.S. 301 N, Tampa. $29-$57.75. (813) 740-2446.
[Last modified May 31, 2006, 12:31:53]
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