Kane Brown loves the audience, and they love him right back.

The crowd-pleasing pop country singer came to PPG Paints Arena on Friday night as part of his In The Air Tour. Brown started out as a social media sensation and has gone on to win CMT and AMA awards over his decade-long career. His most recent charting single, “I Can Feel It,” was released in September of 2023 and found a home on the set list Friday night, to an uproarious response from the crowd.

A frequent collaborator, Brown has made music with country musicians, but also with pop, hip hop and R&B artists. His own music blends country sounds with elements of several different genres and his versatile vocals. As he sang Friday night, “I’m a little bit of bass, 808s, a little bit of clap your hands/I’m a litle bit of six strings on a backbeat with a fiddle in the band.”

Combine all that with some showy technical tricks and enthusiastic audience interaction, and Kane Brown makes for a dazzling show.

Opening for Brown were Parmalee, a North Carolina band with several hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, and Tyler Hubbard, best known as a member of smash hit pop country duo Florida Georgia Line and a hit maker in his own right. Playing a mix of his solo songs — some from the album he’s releasing next month — and Florida-Georgia Line classics made Hubbard an audience favorite. He declared during his set that he would get the crowd ready and rowdy for Brown, and he succeeded with hits like “Cruise” and “5 foot 9.”

Brown’s set was a great time, but not necessarily a long time. After a stuttering start and with an abrupt-feeling ending, his time onstage didn’t quite hit an hour and fifteen minutes, but it was packed with pyrotechnics and pulled no punches.

Starting high above the stage atop a lighting rig, a spotlighted Brown kicked off his set with “Bury Me In Goergia,” a pulse-pounding ode to where he grew up. Movement was the theme of the night; throughout the evening, Brown moved from above the stage, down to the thrust stage, and then right into the audience, taking a circuitous route to the back of the crowd to a small, lit satellite stage where he performed more stripped-down songs “Whiskey Sour” and “Good As You.”

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Much like his music, Brown’s show tried a little bit of a lot of things to wow fans. From well-timed flames so hot that the heat could be felt in the lower bowl to confetti cannons that showered the floor seats with shimmers, he had a lot of tricks up his sleeve.

And Brown himself connected with the crowd so seamlessly that it felt natural, like his ability to sign a hat proffered by a fan in the front rows and sing perfectly at the same time. He seemed genuinely delighted when the crowd sang his lyrics back at him, meeting them with a spirited “Yeah!” several times. He even took the time to start a “Here we go, Steelers” chant.

He had no problem taking fans’ phones to snap selfies while he performed, signing Terrible Towels from the crowd, and even accepting what looked like a onesie from an audience member before leaving the stage (he and his wife, Katelyn, are expecting their third child).

His wife even joined him onstage to perform their duet hit song “Thank God,” a sappy-but-sincere ballad that reached No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Country Airplay chart. Katelyn, in a Penguins sweater and sparkly boots, had beautiful vocal chemistry with her husband.

He also brought Parmalee and Tyler Hubbard back for a one-song-long party onstage, performing “Famous Friends,” a duet he recorded with Chris Young. He followed it up with “Memory,” a more serious look at the perils of living fast, originally recorded with blackbear.

The most soulful moment of the night came when Brown took a seat on a stool on the stage to sing his rendition of “Georgia On My Mind” by Ray Charles. Leading up to the song, he asked, “Are there any golfers in the house? The Masters is about to start, so I have to do this cover song.”

After pausing the show for several minutes due to a medical problem in the crowd, Brown wrapped up the evening, ending on a high note with “Like I Love Country Music,” an upbeat, driving ditty that references genre staple artists like Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn.

Nailing both the boot-stomping, fiddle-driven country songs and the numbers that skewed toward pop and R&B, Brown showed that he doesn’t just have potential in a range of genres, he’s already succeeding. He’s found a welcoming home in country music, and even non-country fans could find something to add to their playlists after Friday night’s show.

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