George Strait did not disappoint Saturday night, but that would have been unlikely anyway.

The country megastar has a faithful following that's been building over 25 years of hugely successful recordings. When tickets for his Pepsi Center show went on sale, they were gone in a couple hours. Much of the audience could sing along to an extensive sampling of songs from Strait's 2006 release, It Just Comes Natural. During one new tune, How 'Bout Them Cowgirls, when Strait sang a line about a girl "riding colts in Steamboat Springs," the crowd squealed in anticipation. This was a crowd that knew his stuff cold.

It was easy to see why Gov. Ritter declared Saturday "George Strait Day." Stetson after black Stetson emerged from the stretch limos parked along Chopper Boulevard before the show. It was a big night out for the country crowd. Those who weren't wearing KYGO T-shirts were dressed to kill, in a cowboy kind of way. This was traditional Colorado, in western finery and a mood to kick up its heels.

The show was a love fest. And for good reason.

George Strait and his 10-piece Ace in the Hole Band are one of the hottest live acts touring. A full-tilt country swing band this good is a sight to behold. During an homage to Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys — Take Me Back to Tulsa (I'm Too Young to Marry) — twin fiddles soared over crackling guitars and a honky piano while licks from the pedal steel guitar wrapped around a drumbeat that fueled the extensive romp. On the slow songs, if your heart didn't begin to melt at the interplay of Mike Daily's pedal-steel with Gene Elder's lonesome fiddle on, say, Amarillo By Morning, well, you're a hard man.

If I could be assured of hearing Strait do that rodeo ballad and its companion piece, I can Still Make Cheyenne, I don't think I'd ever miss a show.

George Strait doesn't write songs but he nonetheless owns them. Many feature a biographical thread that supports his lonesome-cowboy persona. And many have a storytelling quality that is uniquely western and tragi-comic in the fashion of the best country-western songwriting.

Take I Can Still Make Cheyenne. This hard-luck rodeo cowboy calls home from the road to tell his wife he's coming home.

She tells him not to bother: ""I've found someone new/and he sure ain't no rodeo man."

He apologizes for his itinerant life, then sings, "It's alright baby/If I hurry/I can still make Cheyenne."

John Wayne couldn't have said it better.

Strait took the stage just before 10 p.m. and kicked the band into high gear with a crowd-pleaser, Honk if You Honky Tonk. His trademark black hat, creased jeans, tooled belt and starched shirt etched a familiar profile that sent the throngs into early delirium.

Video screens transmitted his easy wide smile, the one that sears into the brain of every female in the house. At 54, Strait's close-cropped sideburns are beginning to gray, and the folds of skin around his golden throat are beginning to loosen. His voice at times benefited greatly from the efforts of two backup singers. But he was in great and energetic form, leading the band through dozens of tunes. If too many ballads and mid-tempo tunes at the end of the regular 90-minute set diluted the crowd's enthusiasm, it quickly rekindled with an encore performance that featured Johnny Cash's classic Folsom Prison Blues. Strait also put his stamp on Merle Haggard's Seashores of Old Mexico, and Webb Pierce's curdling tale of alcoholic's days, There Stands a Glass. His own classics like The Chair and Unwound mixed easily with the new stuff, instant hits like Give It Away and I Ain't Her Cowboy Anymore. This is a band and a bandleader hell-bent on exploring the far reaches of country-western music for legions of adoring fans who ultimately could only scream for more.

Kudos to the Strait tour for reviving the career of '70s country crooner Ronnie Milsap, who ranged through his catalogue of 40 Number-one hits like Pure Love and Any Day Now. Milsap is 64 and those darn video screens displayed the piano playing of his gnarled and trembling arthritic fingertips, while a second keyboard player filled out the sound. His vocal style is reminiscent of George Jones, Roy Orbison, even John Hiatt, and while his hand may begin to fail him, his voice has many years to go, as several standing ovations attested.

The opening act was Taylor Swift, a willowy 17-year-old singer/songwriter who claims more than 200 songs already under her belt. With a song in the top five and great looks framed by long curly blond tresses, she'll likely be around awhile. But unless your taste in songs still runs toward high school crushes and such, you may want to wait a few years until she has more to sing about.