Country legend Alan Jackson said a musical goodbye to a packed house at Orlando’s Kia Center

It was “last call” at the Kia Center all night long on Friday.

Seventeen-time Academy of Country Music Awards winner and owner of one of the greatest mustaches in modern music Alan Jackson “rocked the jukebox” for more than two hours in Orlando. His “Last Call: One More for the Road Tour” took the Kia Center audience through every stage of both his career — and, by extension, country music history.

Jackson built a long career on his traditionalist sound, proudly carrying the torch for “classic” country even as the genre shifted into more pop-influenced realms. Friday’s show evidenced this musical mission in the flesh, full of timeless twang and memorable choruses. Jackson revisited highlights from his over 30 years in music, playing all the hits, and there are many in the Jackson canon. (Loretta Lynn once called him one of the greatest singers in country music, after all.)

Throughout the show, video flashbacks to a younger Jackson played on a jumbo screen above Jackson and his band. Sometimes this distracted from the actual (non-jumbo) Jackson singing his heart out directly below, but the visuals added affecting real-time nostalgia of the concert.

Clips from these archival music videos were meticulously sequenced as Jackson sang the hits — our personal fave was a 20-something Jackson waterskiing while wearing ripped skinny-jeans and a cowboy hat that somehow stayed firmly in place.

During renditions of essential hits like “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” and “Chattahoochee,” Jackson circa now was perfectly synched by Jackson of Christmas Past singing on the screen behind him.

The Kia Center was jam-packed for the occasion, hooting and hollering for the man in the ever-present cowboy hat and sparkly Western shirt. And the night as a whole had a tear-in-my-beer feeling: the final victory lap for a performer who has been holding court on stages large and small for decades. It’s a strange feeling watching someone’s “last” anything, but there we were at the last hurrah for Jackson in Orlando, with just a Tampa date between this and the last stop in Milwaukee in May.

Jackson has played an outsized role in shaping the sounds and feel of country music, and his influence will be reverberate for years to come. You don’t win more awards than there are letters in your name without making a long lasting impact on fans, peers and the genre itself.

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This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2025.