Rascal Flatts must love Charleston, having appeared in town at least four or five times in their relatively short but highly illustrious career.

Here's a news flash: Charleston loves Rascal Flatts, as evidenced by the polite yet wildly enthusiastic crowd that bumped up against the rafters of the Civic Center auditorium.

Also quite telling was the fact that RF gave West Virginia a Saturday night show that could have been easily done in a bigger city playing before a much larger audience in a more spacious venue.

Thanks, Flatts. And thanks also for bringing along the extremely talented Darius Rucker as your opening act.

Oddly enough, Rucker, the former front man of the alt-rock supergroup Hootie & The Blowfish, turned out to be the country portion of the evening's entertainment.

The South Carolina native seems to possess a doctorate in debuts, having struck No. 1 gold on both his first album and single.

Rucker certainly hit the ground running by starting the show with "Forever Road," the opening salvo from his groundbreaking CD "Learn to Live." From that point on there was no stopping his high-energy performance.

Rucker's rapid rise has to be due in part to his smooth, confident, everyman voice, making it quite easy for all to sing along with his catchy, thoughtful tunes.

His five-member band had little trouble keeping up as he showcased several songs from the aforementioned CD. "Alright," "Learn to Live," "It Won't Be Like This for Long," "History in the Making" and "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" were all highlights and "All I Want" and "Drinkin' and Dialin'" spotlighted Rucker's ability to vocalize with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

A cover of Hank Jr.'s "Family Tradition" was aces high, and Rucker thankfully acknowledged his Hootie history with excellent renditions of "Let Her Cry" and "Only Wanna Be With You."

Rucker ended his dozen-song set with a blowout version of a Prince classic. Anyone who can country-up "Purple Rain" is bowling right up my alley.

Darius Rucker is certainly an artist I haven't heard enough or the last of.

After a quite reasonable intermission, Rascal Flatts literally exploded onto the stage to a tri-decibel roar of approval from the crowd. The rock-out portion of the show was most definitely on.

Just to prove that point, RF opened with the ultra high-energy "Summer Nights" from their newest studio effort, "Unstoppable," the title shared by their current tour.

The audio techs had the sound dialed in from the very beginning of Darius Rucker but seemed to crank the volume to one half shade below ouch for Flatts. The bass and kick drum creased my jeans, parted my rapidly graying hair and probably left happy little ripples on the Elk River flowing along behind the Civic Center. My son and I didn't care, but that didn't seem to be the case for some of the fans that sat around us.

Rascal Flatts features the immeasurable talents of Gary LeVox, lead vocals; Joe Don Rooney, vocals and blazing lead guitar; and Jay DeMarcus, vocals, bass and piano. Their five band mates were tight and precise, the perfect complement to the three core members.

Flatts hasn't been the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association's top vocal group every year since 2003 by accident. Each of their songs seems spot-on suited to LeVox's powerfully emotional voice, and Rooney and DeMarcus' background vocals are perfectly proficient at both harmony and counterpoint.

Performing on a stage that snaked and spider-webbed out onto the main floor, the group blasted through an impressive array of megahits. "Stand," "Me and My Boys," "Bless the Broken Road," "Praying for Daylight," "Here Comes Goodbye," My Wish," "Mayberry" and "Bob That Head" all stood out in a 21-song set that was outstanding.

"I Melt" was excellently done and was made even better by morphing into a soulful version of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On."

There isn't a band out there that engages the audience into part of their performance better than Rascal Flatts, and the crowd certainly appreciated the effort.

Flatts encored out with a powering version of the Beatles' "Revolution," called Rucker back to the stage to join in the Hootie's hit "Hold My Hand" and capped the evening off with the ripping "Life Is a Highway."

Top to bottom, beginning to end, stage left to stage right, this was a great show. Rascal Flatts just keeps getting better.

Roger Lilly can be reached via email at criticalm...@yahoo.com