Marylinn and Barbara Brekke never miss an Eddie Rabbitt concert if they can help it. The sisters have been to nearly 30 of Rabbitt’s concerts since 1985. The Minnesota natives adorned in autographed concert shirts stood in line to have a handful of CD jackets signed by Rabbitt after the concert Saturday night.

“I loved it,” was the obvious response from Marylinn Brekke.

Brekke’s possibly biased opinion wasn’t shared by all of the concertgoers. The modest sized, retirement age crowd nearly sucked the fun out of an otherwise terrific performance by country great Eddie Rabbitt on Saturday night.

The “Taste Of Branson” concert opened with a country music impersonator, Jeff Brandt, the Brumley Band and the Country’s Reminisce Hitch, a team of Belgian horses.

Brandt, a native of Des Moines, manipulated his voice to the likes of Mel Tillis, Conway Twitty, Kenny Rogers and even Elvis. He wiggled his hips in Tom Jones fashion and played well to the conservative crowd.

The Brumley Band and the other Branson performers did little to inspire excitement and applause. The majestic Belgian Horses performance was cut short after one of the equine’s took a fall, but fortunately the horse was OK.

Charismatic Rabbitt took the stage around 9 p.m.. With a little gray in his hair and his trademark beard, Rabbitt performed all of his best-loved hits without missing a beat. Though Rabbitt faced a small, older crowd which wasn’t warmed up from the opening acts, he tried to play up to them by getting them involved with the songs and talking directly to them.

“We hate to have too much of a distance between our audience,” Rabbitt said. “I like folks who talk to us.”

Throughout the concert, several overanxious women yelled for Rabbitt to take off his jacket, that they loved him and asked him to turn around and let them see his “butt.”

Rabbitt responded cleverly with, “I see we’ve got the sexy Ames crowd tonight” and “See what happens when I bring members of my family to the show.”

Though true Rabbitt fans and the small portion of the crowd under 50, could hardly sit still through “I Love a Rainy Night,” “The Wanderer,” and “Drivin’ My Life Away,” the majority of the crowd held their hands over their ears and mumbled that the bass was too loud.

Rabbitt did squeeze a little reaction from the crowd after his song “Pure Love” which he wrote for Ronnie Milsap. In the lyrics of the song Rabbitt sang, “Captain Crunch and you in the morning…” He said that if he had wrote the song today, he would have sung, “Fiber One and you really move me.” The crowd was tickled.

Ramona Reiter of Rockford, Iowa, said that it happened by chance that she and her husband were able to come see Rabbitt.

“We are glad we were able to come. I thought the concert was really great. It makes him seem more real” to see Rabbitt live, Reiter said.

Iowa State student, Doug Resh of Essex, Iowa, said, “I thought it was a damn fine concert. He’s [Rabbitt] a great entertainer. I didn’t realize he wrote so many well known songs.”