Kacey Musgraves is probably the artist that I listen to most
these days, so you’d best believe that I was going to trek halfway across
London to see her perform at Wembley Arena for the London leg of her Oh, What A
World Tour.
Proceedings kicked off ahead of schedule with opening act
Soccer Mommy, who I thought was an interesting choice given that she would
certainly not be regarded as country, but more indie/emo style with downbeat
lyrics and groovy guitar beats that you can imagine moping around your room to.
The band, led by lead singer Sophie played a number of
tracks from new record Clean including
Last Girl, about wishing you were
like his ex, Your Dog, which seemed
to be the one members of the crowd were most familiar with, Cool (as in ‘I wanna be that cool’), and
Scorpio Rising. Perhaps not the type
of songs to hype you up, but she made sure there was at least one song in there
that we’d know by producing a cover of Bruce Spingsteen’s I’m On Fire, although this slowed-down version was quite unlike what
we would have heard before.
Personally, not exactly my cup of tea and perhaps suited to
a tour where the main act is the same style of music. Having said that, if the
aim was to bring along a talented songwriter, with Kacey also fitting into that
bucket, then I believe this goal was achieved – whilst sad lyrics, they
certainly had meaning behind them.
We had a bit of a wait before the main act, but the tension
was palpable – any time a song on the speakers ended, the crowd would cheer in
hope that this would be the start. All of a sudden, the lights shut out and
were brought back up again, illuminating the large metal fans at the back of
the stage and Kacey in front of them as the opening bars of Slow Burn began. I really appreciated
this as the first track of the set given that it is also the first track of
latest album Golden Hour – a very
fitting start to the show.
For an arena tour, the setup was not too hi-tech with only
coloured lights and the very occasional video played on the big screens. The
theme seemed to be rainbow, with Kacey dressed in a beautiful sequined rainbow
jumpsuit and lit up every now and then with rainbow lights as she launched into
one of my favourite tracks from Golden
Hour, Wonder Woman. It was at this point, two songs in, that the whole
arena took to their feet in almost a Mexican wave style. We’d stayed reserved
for one song, and that was enough. If you want heartfelt songwriting, look no
further: “I can show you strong, I can fight for you / I can try to move
mountains if you want me to / But baby, I ain’t Wonder Woman.”
It was at this point that she greeted the crowd and I was
pleased at just how personable she was given that she looks quite stoic and
calm whilst singing. She exclaimed about how excited she was to have first
played in London six years ago whilst opening for Lady Antebellum, had then
played the Royal Albert Hall, and was now doing an arena tour, encouraging us
to ‘turn up’ tonight, as if we needed to be told!
Most of the tracks were from Golden Hour with their groovy 70s and 80s inspired vibes like Butterflies and Lonely Weekend, but she managed to slip some older songs in there.
These included an updated electro-style version of Keep It To Yourself - again, I love the lyrics in this song with
lines like “If you think that you still love me / Put it on a shelf / If you’re
looking for someone / Make it someone else / When you’re drunk / And it’s late
/ And you’re missing me like hell / Keep it to yourself,” so it was wonderful
to hear it live. We were also treated to a stripped back version of initial hit
Merry Go Round, and the ever so fun High Time.
Every so often, she would pause to let the crowd sing alone
with every word crisp and clear – Kacey fans are diehard and would happily have
sang the whole gig by themselves. It was interesting to hear how the songs
changed when played live as opposed to on the record, for instance Golden Hour started with a
Latin-influenced intro; whilst Die Fun’s
final notes were stretched out to allow for a mini set change.
We delved into the softer songs at this point with interlude
track Mother and tour name inspo Oh, What A World. After this, Kacey
stopped to introduce the band, saying “I would love to tell you who I’ve got up
here with me and take a minute to recognise I have a kickass band and crew.”
This is clearly someone who doesn’t take her fame and the people who have
helped her along the way for granted.
In the second half of the show, I felt that she gave more
time to introduce the songs as they came, including a song about ‘all the
weirdass people in my family’ (Family Is
Family), how we live in a very weird time in both the US and UK but that
she is hopeful for the future (Love Is A
Wild Thing), and about enjoying taking covers and making them her own (Somewhere Only We Know), for which she
brought our lead singer of Keane, Tom Chaplin. They were clearly big admirers
of each other’s talent, so this was a lovely moment to watch.
It was in the next song, Velvet
Elvis, that I felt like the fun Kacey was well and truly released as she
danced along to the song, playing it up for the camera. Looking around, it was
lovely to see that everyone was having the time of their lives (their were some
well and truly enviable dance moves displayed by members of the audience). The
next song seemed particularly apt as Kacey prefaced Happy & Sad by saying it was inspired by that feeling of being
happy in such a wonderful moment but sad at the prospect that it would soon
have to come to an end – exactly as I felt in that moment.
Space Cowboy and Follow Your Arrow ended the main set
after which a few people began to leave clearly not aware that an encore was
still to come, but I knew the show wouldn’t be over until we heard High Horse. After a few moments, Kacey
returned to the stage, asking if we wanted a few more songs, and if so good,
she had 35 more to play and we’d all be missing the train home, she hoped we’d
brought our sleeping bags. If only that were the truth, and we had to settle
with just three more.
She began the encore perched atop a stool with the ballady Rainbow before turning up the heat for a
cover of *NSYNC’s Tearin’ Up My Heart
with Soccer Mommy, complete with 90’s boy band style dancing. One of the women
sitting next to me near about lost her mind at this point – country queen
covering boy band royalty? Amazing. We finished with the brilliant High Horse. I was secretly hoping for
huge blow up beach balls like we’d had at C2C, but just the fact that we’d been
treated to such a great show was good enough for me, and I left happily
thinking about the next tour. BRB, booking tickets to see her on the rest of
the UK leg!
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