Music

About halfway through their 90-minute set at Superpages.com Center on Saturday night, the country music super-trio Rascal Flatts sang the hit single "Melt." That seemed an especially appropriate choice given the weather. In the near-100-degree heat, with a full house, the venue felt like one big sauna.

We were melting, true, but we were happy. Lead singer Gary LeVox, guitarist Joe Don Rooney and keyboardist Jay DeMarcus, who are touring in support of their just-released album Unstoppable, proved again why they're one of country's top acts. Their show is high-energy, flat-out fun from the get-go: They sang "Summer Nights" as they entered to a fireworks and video extravaganza that most acts would save for the finale. Not Rascal Flatts. That just sets the mood. Never, ever go to a Rascal Flatts concert expecting to stay in your seat.

The audience seemed to enjoy the new songs, which also included the No. 1 single "Here Comes Goodbye" and the soaring ballad "Love Who You Love," but the crowd showed the most love for old favorites. Hearing 20,000 people singing along to the unapologetically, hopelessly romantic "Bless the Broken Road," in what sounded like perfect harmony, would have melted the most cynical soul.

The live videographer provided the audience with some priceless shots: Rooney's amazingly precise fingerwork, DeMarcus finessing a piano that appeared to be covered in a mosaic of broken mirrors, LeVox sweating in his blinged-out T-shirts (somewhere along the way, Gary has gotten access to a Bedazzler).

As good as Rascal Flatts was, the group was matched by opening act Darius Rucker, who sang songs from his excellent debut country album, Learning to Live; he also gifted the audience with a couple of gems from his Hootie & the Blowfish days: "Let Her Cry" and "Only Wanna Be With You."

Before singing his No. 1 hit "Don't Think I Don't Think About It," the first No. 1 country song from a solo black artist since 1983, Rucker gave a special shoutout to Texas country radio stations, which he said were in the "top five reasons why this album has been such a success."

Rucker also came back for the RF encores, with both acts singing Hootie's "Hold My Hand" and RF's "Life Is a Highway." It was a perfect melding of RF's country-pop and Rucker's country-soul-blues, a sublime combination that left the audience melting with pure pleasure.