Kid Rock loses his voice, powers through an energetic, sometimes pandering set at Gexa

Kid Rock had barely begun Thursday night at Gexa Energy Pavilion when the show came to a rasping halt.

"I'm sorry, but my voice is gone," he told the sweaty capacity crowd of 20,000. "Give me two minutes. Let me figure this out."

Not a good sign. The last time an artist walked off the Gexa stage on a sweltering night because of ostensible "voice problems" -- Kings of Leon, July 2011 -- they wound up canceling the show, the tour, and almost breaking up.

But a few minutes and one dose of cortisone later, Kid Rock was back and ready for battle. "It ain't gonna be perfect," he said. "But I'll give you everything I've got."

He was right on both counts. Not a great vocalist to begin with, he sounded like an asthmatic bullfrog by the end of the show as he leaned heavily on his backup singers.

He bailed out of several tunes after just a verse or two. In lieu of singing, he talked about his life and career and his reaction to sudden fame in the 1990s: "My head swelled up like a watermelon."

He's a funny guy, brimming with energy and bravado, and he came off as likable even when he was pandering. Thursday, he sang a new song titled "Johnny Cash" not because the lyrics had anything to do with Cash, but because you can't go wrong naming a song after the Man in Black -- or Jesus, either. Another new tune, "Jesus and Bocephus," was his latest seriocomic song about saints and sinners, followed later in the set by 2007's "Rock N Roll Jesus."

A Detroit kid with a longtime affinity for all things Southern, Kid Rock was the subject of a recent protest by civil rights activists upset by his use of the Confederate flag. In reality, he stopped using the rebel flag onstage in 2010, although some fans apparently still hadn't gotten the memo -- the Dixie flag flew proudly in the parking lot and on countless T-shirts.

The only flag onstage was the Stars and Stripes that appeared in a long, jingoistic video that played for no particular reason near the end of the show. A far more noticeable symbol was the huge Chrysler name and logo that flew above the stage throughout the set.

Last year, the auto giant paid Kid Rock to use "Born Free" in an ad campaign.Thursday night, he returned the favor, slipping Chrysler into the lyrics of "First Kiss," the nostalgia-minded title track of his new album, and the very first song of the evening. Voice or no voice, the Kid wasn't about to ignore the corporate hand that feeds him.

Foreigner opened the concert with a tight hour-long set of hits, including "I Want To Know What Love Is" featuring backing vocals by the Booker T. Washington High School For The Performing & Visual Arts Jazz Singers.

Foreigner's never been the same since the departure of the great Lou Gramm. But his replacement, Kelly Hansen, did an admirable job of replicating Gramm's blue-eyed soul shout in "Urgent," "Jukebox Hero" and "Hot Blooded" - the perfect set-closer in an evening where the thermometer never got out of the 90s.

Thor Christensen is a Dallas writer and critic. Email him at thorchris2@yahoo.com