Matt Gaetz, in the flesh, as a hype man. A veteran brought onstage by Big & Rich to proudly proclaim “F— Joe Biden” and chase it with a shot or two at the onstage bar. Kid Rock earnestly calling for respect for the flag, after literally having pole dancers grinding against it at the start of his set.

On a scale of one to 10, how Trumpy was Rock the Country’s opening night in Mobile? It was about a 34. (You could buy a shirt saying “Convicted Felon – Proud Voter 2024,” and variations abounded among the crowd. “I’m voting for the felon,” “I’d rather vote for a felon than a jackass,” etc.)

The touring two-day festival is a project launched this year by the founders of Cullman’s Rock the South festival in partnership with Kid Rock. The roster hitting Mobile included Uncle Kracker, Big & Rich and Kid Rock on Friday, to be followed by a Saturday lineup topped by Randy Houser, Brantley Gilbert and Jason Aldean.

The event site is The Grounds, and the arrangement is a bit more compact than the layout for a 2021 Morgan Wallen concert that drew more than 31,000. Organizers said they expected more than 20,000 daily for Rock the Country, and that seemed like a reasonable ballpark estimate for Friday’s turnou. Despite worries about gridlock, traffic appeared to be flowing well around The Grounds late Friday afternoon, as the crowd built toward its maximum.

The vibe felt less like a political rally, more like a concert, and a surprisingly mellow one at that. Like-minded folks to tend to chill out when they know they’re in a safe space, after all, and Uncle Kracker was there to help them drift away to halcyon days of 2002.

The DJ entertaining the crowd between sets, Dee Jay Silver, provided an interesting map of the crowd’s likes. Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5″ got a big response, but not nearly as big as Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight.” Then Silver played the “Cupid Shuffle” and all of a sudden people wearing plastic “Trump 2024″ cowboy hats were, you know, doing the Cupid Shuffle. It was kind of fun, like watching the world’s weirdest mosh pit come to life. Maybe it’s a Mobile Mardi Gras thing. Then Silver played Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” and that went over huge.

Big & Rich’s set, like Uncle Kracker’s, was a time capsule – but a hard-rocking one that served as a reminder of what a jolt these guys gave country back in the early-mid 2000s. “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy!” “Comin’ to Your City!” Gretchen Wilson, “Redneck Woman!” Cowboy Troy playing chicken with the train!

John Rich spent a few minutes praising members of the armed forces, saying that present-day Americans stand on the shoulders of those who served, then added: “I don’t know about you, but here’s how I feel about it. If you don’t love America, why don’t you get the hell out of here right now, because we’ll be just fine without you! Just fine! Maybe some day. Maybe some day. Maybe November 6, we’ll see that happen.”

After Big & Rich’s set, one of the event’s organizers took the stage to drive a few points home. The lighting rig shaped like a cross? “That’s not on accident guys, ‘cause we believe that the future of this country, the hope of this country, is found in none other than Jesus Christ,” he said. “In a big year like this year, we believe the only hope for this country is Jesus. We’re going to pray for the nation, anybody up for that right here tonight? We also want to remind everybody, if you haven’t already, register to vote, if you would. Because the future of the country is in your hands. … Dear Jesus we come to you. We thank you for this crowd. We thank you for these people. We thank you for these people who get up every single day and supply and work for their family. We thank you for our military. We thank you for the leaders of this country. God, we thank you than 2024 is in your hands, and the future of this country is in your hands, and we pray when this election happens, God, that your will be done and you will make this country great once again. We thank you for nights like this and SEC football, we thank you for barbecue, we thank you for cold beer, we thank you for Rock the Country and we thank you for Kid Rock, who’s about to blow this stage up here tonight.”

Cue Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” Cue a surprise appearance by Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, bounding out on stage shouting “oh, all I see are deplorables out there! Far as the eye can see!”

“I came out here with the specific direction to invite all of you to the swamp of Washington, D.C., in January of 2025,” Gaetz said, “when we have a concert, with Big & Rich and Kid Rock, and Donald John Trump is triumphantly and historically restored as the president of the United States!”

Cue the headliner’s pre-show clip, not a song but a classic deadpan comedy clip about the grammatical flexibility of the f-word, a two-and-a-half-minute carpeting of f-bombs apparently designed to soften up the audience for the lavish profanity of Kid Mothereffing Rock himself.

You know what? Kid Rock put on a whale of a show. Whatever you might think of the two pole dancers working the onstage flagpoles and the flags thereon – and none of the patriots present seemed to think anything of it at all – he brought all the 15- to 20-year-old rap-rock classics a contemporary country crowd could ask for, played loud by a tight band, with plenty of fireworks on and over the stage. The 2002 ballad “Picture” was a centerpiece, a nice touch for those who remember that Mobilian Allison Moorer was one of the artists who recorded that duet with him.

Yes, he got a dig at the current president in there somewhere. In between “well you can tell Joe Biden he can kiss my” and “ass” there were a handful of syllables, but it was hard to make them out over the cheering.

The show lost a little steam when Rock went on a tour of his early days, to show folks he still had chops on the turntables, guitar and drums. But he fired it back up for the finish, with more volume, more energy and more fireworks. Let the record show that the country was duly rocked.

Parking at The Grounds was to open at noon Saturday, with festival gates opening at 3. Headliner Jason Aldean was to take the stage at 9:35 p.m.