Dolly’s flawless performance and shinning personality easily won over the crowd at the Gwinnett Center Arena in Duluth, Ga., outside of Atlanta Friday night. She was in top form, coming off a two-week break from the road ready to entertain. Between the songs and the jokes, she announced a bit more about her new music video and offered a couple of poignant and emotional moments for the fans gathered to hear her sing.

      The night began with an energetic half-hour set from The Grascals. The crowd took a strong liking to the band and its premiere pickin’, with one or two being heard during their performance saying, “They’re good!” Several of their numbers brought great applause and cheers from the audience --both during the songs and afterward -- not that common of a feat for relative newcomers serving as an opening act. After the show, one fan who attended several stops on last year’s “Hello I’m Dolly” Tour commented: “The Grascals, then Dolly. That just feels right, like that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

The Grascals.

      After a break, Dolly took to the stage just before 9 p.m. for her nearly 90-minute set. As has been the custom at the other shows on the tour, a lone fiddle player churned out a mournful rendition of “Those Were The Days” (although he remained behind the curtain, while at many of the earlier concerts he was in front of the curtain). After he finished and the lights danced around the closed curtain, it fell without a hitch, revealing to the audience the singer at the top of her staircase donning a sparkling, green, form-fitting dress and standing just below the shimmering “Dolly” logo on the backdrop. The entire house immediately rose to its feet cheering.

      Dolly launched into her vigorous work-up of “Those Were The Days,” interacting with folks on the front row as she pranced back and forth at the foot of the stage, pointing at those who caught her attention, laughing with some and waving at others. After some between-song banter, she launched right into “9 To 5” and “Jolene” before entering into her grouping of songs from the new CD.

The curtain falls.

      Judging from the sound of the crowd’s reaction, most of the older audience members seemed most impressed with her older material, while most of the younger-sounding screams came for the new cover songs.

      With no signs of the hoarseness that has haunted several shows on the tour as she’s battled throat problems, the very talkative chanteuse again brought out her ‘60s-themed jokes for the tour (the dawning of the age spots of Aquarius, going from dropping acid to dropping from acid reflux, no more free love because of the cost of Viagra, etc.) but added a few new ones, including that someone asked her if she was into ZZ Top back in the ‘70s, to which she replied that she didn’t know bras came that big but adding -- as she posed suggestively -- that’s the size she probably needs. She also joshed after a couple of Viagra and ’60s drug references that she hopes anyone on drugs there that night had a prescription for them, adding: “This ain’t Dollywoodstock! If you are on drugs that make you want to have sex, please wait until you get home!”

      There was the obligatory “I told you to wait in the truck!” after a shout-out of “I love you, Dolly!” She also warned one female fan, “Don’t hurt yourself!” after hearing a very passionate and pained cry of adoration. And when another audience member screamed out when Dolly asked if they remembered her first pop crossover successes, she replied: “Aw, you’re too young to remember. I can tell by your voice!”

      Being in Atlanta she mentioned having just performed on the CMAs with part-time resident Elton John, laughing that she asked if he was coming to her show, and he said no, so she told him she wouldn’t come to his show then. She noted the city’s drag popularity when introducing “Jolene,” but didn’t offer the “drag queen” chorus she has sung in some cities. And in reference to the city’s large gay population, she said in introducing “Marry Me” that it was for all the girls who wanted to marry that special boy, and maybe for a few of the boys who want to, too.

      Perhaps the most touching moment of the night came during the segment of the concert dedicated to her upbringing and family. After “My Tennessee Mountain Home” and a verse of the Martha White flower theme song (to illustrate the pun that her mother often had “flour” in her hair) , she introduced “Coat Of Many Colors.” In speaking of the loss of her mother two years ago, her voice brimmed with emotion as she offered, “When I hold this autoharp, it feels like I’m holding my mama in my lap.” When she next spoke of the little coat her mother made, the audience erupted with cheers and applause -- even before she began the song. At its conclusion, a handful of fans stood to show their appreciation.

      She also revealed two new pieces of information during the show. First, she said her video for “Imagine” should be on the cable stations sometime this week and that Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, was so impressed with her version of his song that she provided personal home movie clips of him and allowed Dolly to use them in the video. Also, she expanded for the first time (to my knowledge) on Bob Dylan’s declining to appear on her new CD, saying he was out on tour with Merle Haggard at the time she wanted him to come into the studio but he told her he didn’t have time to leave the tour and do it -- to which she added her joke that she told him she was going to do an entire album of Dolly Does Dylan but he could forget that now.

      Before introducing her band at one point in the show, she thanked the sound, lighting and road crews as well as the tour manager and her staff and all of the other folks who work behind the scenes to make the show a success. She also thanked The Grascals for opening for her and said she was so glad to have them back on the road with her, especially since they were so involved in her new CD by helping her with the musical arrangements and playing on most of the songs on it.

      One thing that seemed to amuse some longtime fans was that twice during the show she forgot the ‘70s -- mistakenly identifying two different occurrences from her career as taking place about a decade after they happened. In the band introductions, she noted that Richard Dennison had been with her since 1985 (although he joined her band in the ‘70s), and when she introduced “Here You Come Again,” she said it had been her first crossover hit and came out in the mid-1980s (although it was released in 1977).

      By the end of the night, the crowd was already more than satisfied when she thanked them for coming and began her signature song, “I Will Always Love You.” The applause and cheers came immediately after its first line, which appeared to startle her slightly as it was unexpected. She, of course, received a standing ovation at the song’s conclusion, and the crowd remained standing after she left the stage and upon her returning continued to scream and applaud until she instructed them to sit down so she could sing them another one, “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

      Presenting Lennon’s “Imagine,” she spoke, as she has at many other concerts on the tour, of his vision of a world where mankind has learned to live in peace and harmony and lamented that he didn’t live to see that happen, adding that we haven’t seen it either. She said that she knows that someday we’ll see peace -- a statement which garnered a great deal of applause. When she held up her hands above her head on the final chorus of the song at the line “the world will live as one,” initially pointing one finger on each hand toward the sky and then changing them to peace signs, the crowd once again stood on its feet and cheered, continuing to applaud and cheer through her additional final verse on the song, her thank yous after its completion and her reprise of the chorus as she left the stage.

      The venue appeared to be between 80 and 90 percent sold out, and the crowd looked to be roughly a 70-30 split of older fans over younger fans, two items which a couple of local audience members attributed to the concert being held at an arena about half an hour out in the city’s suburbs rather than a theater in the city proper. Her shows last year and in 2002 within the city sold out and drew much heavier urban hipster and GLBT crowds than this weekend’s. Celebrity fans in attendance included Trace Atkins, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., actress Lili Taylor and American Idol's Diana Degarmo.

Stipe and Taylor in the lobby after the show.

      Missing from this concert were the large screens used in the earlier venues and two songs she had been performing on the leg of the tour immediately before this: “These Old Bones” and “PMS Blues.” No reason was given for the absence of either one, although a few reviewers on the tour have noted both songs as those they could have done without.

Set List: