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Slick and polished, Old Crow Medicine Show brought its uneasy hybrid of Southern bluegrass and poppy new country to a sold-out Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre on Monday, and the result was something that was just so refined that it seems to have lost the soul of the music that helped shape the band.

Musically, the band was tighter than the strings on the banjos and guitars that the eight dudes in jeans rotated through along the way. They swapped instruments and took turns on vocals and being featured in true ensemble fashion.

Handsome frontman Ketch Secor proved clever and charismatic in his tight jeans, making the clever references about Utah's culture and tossing in a few well-received disses to Provo with a charming wink and a grin.

Their high-octane solos were frenetic and driven, the songs dancy and upbeat. So what's not to like?

Well, it was all just a little too precious, like it was less a band and more stars in a Broadway musical about a newgrass band.

These are guys largely not even from the South, who attended ritzy private schools and top colleges, then got together when they all lived in New York to play banjos and mandolins.

Everyone had a schtick. Their choreography — yes, they had choreography — was too much on the mark, the jokes a little too tailored, the whole thing just so well-rehearsed and scripted that it lost the spontaneity and heart of the music of the hills that Old Crow emulates.

To paraphrase Waylon Jennings, I don't think Hank done it this way. Or Earl Scruggs. Or Ralph Stanley. Or any of the rest of them.

Cory Yount, for example, was exceptional on keyboards and mandolin, and drew big hoots from the audience when he threw in an old-timey dance across the stage.

There might be some "hillbilly girls" who might go out with Cory, Secor joked. "And not just the ones from Idaho. I mean the good-looking ones from Salt Lake City."

The band opened with "Tell It To Me," one of two songs in the night about cocaine, featuring a nice slide guitar by Critter Fuqua. The fourth song of the night, "Bootlegger's Boy," was the most authentic bluegrass throwback, complete with an old-fashioned breakdown that showed off the band's musical chops.

They gave a shout-out to Utahns in the military — "God bless them and protect them and bring them home safe and sound" — before playing "Levi," and then Secor shouted, "Let's play one for the Utes," which of course got cheers, before diving into "Sweet Amarillo." They played "Humdinger," which actually was a humdinger, about "Wine, whiskey, women and guns," and dedicated it to the "children of 3.2 beer."

All on point, all feeling like a little pandering.

They turned in a nice cover of Bob Dylan's "Most Likely You Go Your Way I'll Go Mine," celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of "Blonde on Blonde," one of the greatest albums ever. Then followed it up with a less impressive cover of Freddy Cannon's "Palisades Park."

The opener for the evening, the Dom Flemons Trio, beefed up the band even more and provided a highlight for the night on their cover of "See See Rider," and then the band pared down to four for a stripped-down acoustic version of their own hit, "I Hear Them All" mashed into "This Land Is Your Land."

They closed the set with the band's big hit, "Wagon Wheel" — a song started by Dylan and finished by Old Crow — and everyone, of course, sang along. For the encore, the band played the foot-stomping "8 Dogs 8 Banjos," and finished it off with "Route 66," where they were once again joined by the Flemons trio.

All said, these are talented musicians who aside from a busted base played flawlessly and made for a fun night, the smoothly honed sheen of the act, notwithstanding.

Flemons was an intriguing act to open the night. Based in Phoenix, Flemons used to play with the Carolina Chocolate Drops and draws heavily from the traditional African American music of the Dust Bowl South, playing banjo, harmonica, dry bones (akin to the spoons), and an old-time flute called quills. Wearing a pork pie hat and suspenders, Flemons explained his mission is to help bring the music of the past to new audiences and certainly reached a new crowed Monday night.