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YOUNGSTOWN -- If Saturday's concert at the Covelli Centre was a scene in a biopic about HARDY or Lainey Wilson, it would be the one that comes about 45 minutes to an hour into the movie where the artist's struggles and years of hard work finally pay off.
HARDY is on his first headlining tour, playing to crowds who sing along with every song and cheer his every move.
With his horn rimmed glasses and less-than-chiseled physique, I'm guessing HARDY had a few Nashville label executives tell him, "We see you more as a songwriter than a performer," and the show feels a bit like his extended middle finger to every one of them.
This won't be HARDY's last headlining tour, and the next one will be playing venues much bigger than Youngstown's arena.
Wilson wasn't the headliner Saturday, but she's on a similar trajectory. Earlier this month, she picked up nine CMA Award nominations. No woman and only one man has received more in a single year.
Judging by the number of women in the crowd wearing bell bottoms (Wilson's latest album is "Bell Bottom Country") and the number of young girls in the crowd wearing cowboy hats, Wilson was at least as big of a draw as HARDY for many in the audience.
It's unlikely Wilson will be anyone's opening act much longer.
Neither artist is a rookie -- Wilson released her first album in 2014, HARDY moved to Nashville to write songs in 2010 -- and it's fun to catch performers at this point in their careers, when the success and adulation is fresh and new, when the feeling still is, "This is what I always wanted!" and before it becomes, "This is what I always wanted?"
Not surprisingly, one of the highlights of the night was when Wilson returned during HARDY's set to perform "Wait in the Truck," a duet that is responsible for song of the year and event of the year CMA nods for both performers.
Each stood at opposite corners of the back of the stage to start the song with dramatic floor lighting shooting white beams toward the ceiling.
With each verse of the tale about a man who takes vengeance on a domestic abuser, the singers moved closer to each other and the audience.
HARDY also brought back opening act Dylan Marlowe, as the two sat on stools and traded tunes like they used to in songwriter rooms.
Like his songs, HARDY's set was filled with almost whiplash-inducing tonal shifts and contradictions.
His lyrics frequently point out the formulaic constraints of contemporary country songwriting, but few songwriters in the last decade have been better at tapping into the matrix of that formula (as the 14 No. 1s he's penned for himself and others attest).
He wraps himself in faith and the flag on "God's Country" (and I mean that literally, he wore a flag over his shoulders like a cape) in the same set where he regularly shifts into Linkin Park mode and unleashes a torrent of profanity on a track like "Radio Song."
In his 90-minute show, there were moments that could have been a Lee Greenwood concert and others that would have been at home on the OzzFest tours.
Wilson's 40-minute set fell more in the traditional country lane, although songs like "Hillbilly Hippie" prove she's no traditionalist.
She has a bit of a quiver in her voice like Dolly Parton, which she uses effectively on songs like "Watermelon Moonshine," "Things a Man Oughta Know" and her set closer "Heart Like a Truck."
Wilson also might have set the record for the most autographs signed while continuing to sing.