There was a clinic held at the Corel Centre last night and it had nothing to do with hockey.

Heck, it was just Alan Jackson showing 12,500 fans how a country concert is done up right.

As the lights went down and the fans zoomed into banshee mode, long, tall Jackson strode casually onto the stage in a cutoff T-shirt with a beer drinkin' NASCAR video as his backdrop for a crash course in Who's Cheatin' Who.

Now that's knowing your market share.

Using a combination of a sizzling backup band and the exceptional video tools at his disposal, Jackson literally cruised through an evening that was wall-to-wall number one hits.

Without skipping a beat, the boys jetted into the goofy I Don't Even Know Your Name, and even though this was only the second song the crowd came screaming to its feet and pretty much never sat down.

Jackson was in much better voice than his last appearance and it showed on the slower stuff like his bluesy peeler anthem She's Got The Rhythm, the up-tempo good vibe of Livin' On Love and the two-step old-style anthem There Goes, among others.

Many performers are now inserting "unplugged" segments into their concerts and Jackson is no different, except he calls it "half-wired."

It allowed the normally quiet star to tell a few stories about his life on the road and how the songs themselves were conceived.

In the end, the crowd shook the Corel Centre to its foundation when they pleaded for an encore. He nailed them with a smashing redo of Chatahootchie and Mercury Blues just for good measure.

Full value all night long.

***

Country folkie Deana Carter has already made a huge dent in the charts with back-to-back monster hits off Did I Shave My Legs For This?

She then went right out on the road and worked every town that would have her.

As whispy as she is in person, Carter can crank it up with the best of them.

Last night she deftly walked the fine line between playing the hits and exposing the fans to new music on her soon to be released Everything's Gonna Be Alright.

But it was the big hits that many in the crowd yearned for and Carter gave them Strawberry Wine and Did I Shave My Legs For This? back-to-back to close her hour. And instead of rolling the tracks off just as they're presented on the album, they both got a hard-nosed bluesy edge to their sound.

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5