You know what they reckon ‘round Nashville: Five heads are better than one.
Okay, maybe nobody says that. But more was certainly more Friday night at PNC Bank Arts Center, as country superstar Miranda Lambert and hit-making quartet Little Big Town’s co-headlining Bandwagon Tour rolled into Central Jersey.
The night in Holmdel felt like a deluxe, privileged experience, as the well-liquored crowd was treated to not only two full sets — an hour from each act — but an incendiary 30-minute finale, which found everyone on stage at once, jumping in on each other’s biggest tunes. It was fantasy-level country karaoke, boosted by a mammoth band — 14 musicians on stage, as the acts’ backing groups combined to form a booming Brady Bunch.
The playful friendship clearly shared between Lambert and LBT members Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Philip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook was palpable as they performed nearly arm-in-arm, nudging each other and laughing over inside jokes as they tore through smashes like LBT’s sweeping ballad “Better Man” (2017) and Lambert’s hurtling “Little Red Wagon” (2014), finishing with the bacchanalian closer “Drunk (I Don’t Wanna Go Home)” (2021).
The best concert tours reveal a piece of the artist that fans wouldn’t see otherwise, and to watch this crop of generally very poised country stars — all of them most frequently seen at the glitzy Grammy and Academy of Country Music award ceremonies — cutting loose with such unadulterated joy was a pleasure, if not a glimpse into the after-party.
Miranda Lambert performs at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel on June 10, 2022. (Photo: Manny Carabel/Live Nation)
Before the combined set, Little Big Town launched the double bill with their list of harmony-heavy hits, hooking the audience of about 15,000 with their 2012 party jam “Pontoon.” But the group’s true power unfurled a few songs later, on “Next to You,” a ballad off their most recent album, 2020′s “Nightfall,” which unleashed a grand crescendo in its back half, with the Broadway-worthy “whoa”s inducing goosebumps.
There’s a reason this enduring Alabama group, born from Fairchild and Schlapman’s college friendship, has stuck around for nearly 25 years: They deliver time and again. On Friday, they traded off lead vocals, toggling between tender tunes like “When Someone Stops Loving You” and boozy cuts like “Day Drinking” — “it ain’t the Osmonds up here,” Fairchild quipped — and of course saved their biggest hit, 2014′s pseudo-provocative “Girl Crush” to close out their perfectly serviceable (if not over-sanitized) set.
Though it appeared most of the crowd was in attendance for Lambert, the Texas-bred singer-songwriter, who over the last two decades has ascended to Nashville nobility on the back of several highly acclaimed albums. Her ninth and latest LP, April’s “Palomino” is another knockout, a slow-burning ode to life on the road, American travelogues and a direct descendent of her 2021 acoustic “Marfa Tapes” project: rough cuts recorded in single takes with just two guitars and a campfire vibe. All of this has proven a shrewd departure from the blazing mainstream country that has defined most of Lambert’s career; outlaw-leaning hits like “Kerosene” (2005) and “Gunpowder and Lead” (2008).
“I ain’t the kind you take home to mama,” she sings on “Heart Like Mine,” more or less crystallizing her place in the genre: Where Carrie Underwood, 39, is the polished, pop-friendly cheerleader, Lambert, 38, is the more serrated, bad-ass rock star.
Donning a black dress with red fringe, rhinestone stockings and white cowgirl boots, Lambert and her seven-piece band opened her solo set with the excellent new tune “Actin’ Up,” which hinges on a smoldering, down-tempo guitar chug and cool indifference from the star. The hookier newbie “Strange” enveloped the cavernous venue with images of canyons on the big screen. And before the album’s swooning lead single “If I Was a Cowboy,” Lambert endeared herself to the Jersey crowd.
“I’m an honorary New York/New Jersey resident — I married a New York boy, what can I say?” she joked, referencing her 2019 marriage to a NYPD officer from Staten Island. After her very public divorce from country mega-star Blake Shelton in 2015, who could’ve guessed?
“I’ve learned from traveling the Northeast that there are cowgirls everywhere, where are mine tonight?” Lambert asked, earning huge cheers from the crowd, many of them sipping vodka lemonades from plastic mason jars with tiny pink Stetsons stuck on top. If that’s not authentic country, what is?
Lambert’s beaming set continued with a pumping cover of John Prine’s “That’s the Way That the World Goes ‘Round” and a big finish with her hip-shimmying singalong “Mama’s Broken Heart” and explosive “Gunpowder.”
Then Little Big Town emerged from the wings, injecting warmth and swell into the somber tune “Tin Man,” which began only with Lambert and light-treading piano.
The acts later noted how this was the Bandwagon Tour’s second installation, the first being in 2018, and how Friday’s show was already the roadshow’s penultimate gig (they play Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden Saturday night).
Though none should be surprised if this tour finds a third leg some years down the road — they’re all having too much fun to quit now.
Miranda Lambert’s setlist
June 10, 2022 — PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, N.J.
With Little Big Town
Little Big Town’s setlist
Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.
Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook.
The Link LonkJune 11, 2022 at 10:09PM
https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2022/06/miranda-lambert-little-big-town-play-country-karaoke-at-huge-nj-concert-review.html
Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town play country karaoke at huge N.J. concert: review - NJ.com
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
No comments:
Post a Comment