Brooks & Dunn bring boots, scoots, & boogie to Highland, CA

Country music legends Brooks & Dunn played their final show of the year at Yaamava’ Resort & Casino in Highland, CA on Saturday night, November 9th, with no opening act — just hit after hit of pure country! With a catalogue spanning over 30 years and 20 number-one hits, the country duo Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn have paved the way for many of the younger country musicians.

Growing up in the 90s, I remember my grandparents having Brooks & Dunn tape cassettes in their vehicles, singing along to “Neon Moon” and “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”… so seeing them live was a great bucket list show to check off, for sure! The two went straight into the show, no opener, coming out playing a song off their first album — the huge hit “Brand New Man”. The crowd was amped.

Brooks took a moment after a few songs to crack open a yellow belly Coors to thank the crowd for paying his bills over the last 30 years.

He went on to share how Ronnie and he were just two random people the label put together and it turned out to be a great match. With a great visual display playing in the background, with things relating to the songs, it brought a warm relaxing feeling. It was not a rowdy crowd at all: just fans enjoying the songs they grew up listing to. Brooks teased the crowd with “Neon Moon”, but Dunn was quick to push it, saying ‘we got all night to get there’. Instead, they went into “Rock My World-Little Country Girl”, where Kix played a outstanding harmonica solo.

As the show went on, Ronnie took a moment to tell a story of how he bought his daughter a horse to distract her from boys, followed by a song he wrote for her called “Cowgirls Don’t Cry”. Other hits as “Red Dirt Road”, “Play Something Country”, and “Hardworking Man” played with the same high energy… before the lights went out. As the backdrop screen turned to a dark desert sky, a blue neon moon appeared and the crowd went wild. It was time for “Neon Moon” and Ronnie had the crowd dig deep to belt out the chorus with him. They did not disappoint. As the night came to an end, the two left the stage only to return for the encore to play everyone’s all-time favorite hit of Brooks & Dunn, “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”, closing it all out by thanking the Veterans and playing “Only In America”. 

Photography by Tré Torres

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