Brad Paisley at the sold-out Molson Amphitheatre concert in Toronto Thursday night. (Dave Abel, Toronto Sun)

TORONTO - There was plenty of alcohol and cowboy hats at the nearly sold-out venue on the lakeshore Thursday night, something country star Brad Paisley couldn't have scripted any better even if he wanted to.

The musician -- on the road as part of his 2010 H20 Tour and with a signature tuned entitled Alcohol - had most of the rowdy, boisterous fans on their feet for two hours at Toronto's Molson Canadian Amphitheatre with an array of old-country honky tonk, ballads and plenty of well-crafted toe-tappers.

But Paisley definitely played up the water aspect with the video introduction influenced by Jaws, with Paisley's guitar playing the role of a shark fin. Pretending to emerge from the water, the performer then delved straight into Water while glad-handing fans across a lengthy walkway jutting into the crowd.

Backed by a large cast highlighted by pedal steel and fiddle, Paisley plowed through Online and Wrapped Around, the latter featuring him teasing the audience with a snippet of O Canada on electric guitar. Later on a few more bits of Canadian content appeared such as the flag during American Saturday Night and the phrase "Go Leafs Go" which caused another loud roar.

Part of the attraction to Paisley's music is it's well-rooted in traditional country music with the cheating, drinking and heartache themes. However he's managed to throw in new themes such as cyberspace with Online and being famous with Celebrity without coming across as hokey. Celebrity also had a Paisley-ish twin with a giant head coming on stage as funny fake headlines about Paisley were shown behind him.

Unfortunately, if there was one low point, it might have been Whiskey Lullaby. Instead of perhaps having a female backing vocalist to duet with the singer onstage, a video of Alison Krauss (who duets on the album version) singing appeared which seemed just a tad odd.

Regardless, Paisley held up his end of the bargain with softer, romantic nuggets like Waitin' On A Woman and The World while then revving things into another gear with Mud On The Tires and the roots rocker Welcome To The Future. And his appreciation for the audience was also never in doubt, thanking them for coming given the tough times the concert industry finds itself in. He also ventured up to the "cheap seats" area near the back to play Letter To Me in the rain.

Other highlights included the comical The Fishing Song (I'm Gonna Miss Her), Catch All The Fish, Drink All The Beer, I'm Still A Guy and Ticks.

Although the bill featured five support acts, the main stage openers were worth getting there early. Mixing his solo country material with gems from his work in Hootie And The Blowfish, Darius Rucker (wearing a Run-DMC t-shirt) managed to veer from honky tonk barroom with Family Tradition to a solid cover of Prince's Purple Rain with ridiculous ease.

And Justin Moore made some new fans with Backwoods, Back That Thing Up and Small Town USA before attempting a cover of ZZ Top's Gimme All Your Lovin'.