18 November 2015 (gig)
07 December 2015
It’s not quite meteoric but it’s not far off as Kacey Musgraves and her band - they all attired in raspberry coloured suits and fairy lights - take to the stage. It’s only last year that she was in the Shepherds Bush Empire and tonight it is the regal (and full) - surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall.
They open with the delightful Pageant Material, receiving a rapturous welcome that goes up a notch as, at her command, the crowd are on their feet for the hit single Biscuits and it looks as if we are in for a hoe down of a concert.
It slightly tails off after that for a period and the well drilled band did appear to be going through the motions. The nadir being the band introductions and juggling that just felt like padding.
Thankfully the pull away from that and when they do click they are formidable. These songs sound fuller live and Musgraves’s versatile voice of pop lightness and Country grit resonates around the arena.
This is to the fore during the contrasting mid-set trio of No Scrubs, Fine and Dime Store Cowgirl which just rippled through the audience. Changing pace and tone completely is the very moving solo version of Merry Go ‘Round during which a visibly emotional Ms Musgraves refers to the Paris attack and the pressures to cancel the concerts.
And from that point to the end of the main show, the ever engaging Kacey Musgraves and band got it together for a finale of familiar songs – including a literally stomping version of These Boots Were Made for Walking with her flashing light cowboy boots - casting a spell over the audience that had them back on their feet and even had hardened hacks whooping! The encore, an A Capella version of Roy Rogers Happy Trails, closes the concert on a quiet high.
By all accounts Kacey Musgraves is the first Country artist of sell out the Royal Albert Hall since 2003, and that’s fitting. As she says, she is about song writing, and for all the rhinestones, spangles, lights and coloured suits, this is a performance built on a collection of very good, witty, catchy songs that, looking at the audience tonight, transcends generations.
