Sugarland sticks to sweet playbook for Falls show
They’ve been gone for five years, and Friday night at Fallsview Casino, Sugarland looked like a band re-claiming its turf.
For the first of two shows at the 1,500-seat Avalon Ballroom (the second was Saturday night), the duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush picked up right where they left off in 2012, which a soldout crowd eagerly embraced. As they should — most paid a premium to see what’s normally an arena band in an intimate venue, and despite all the possibilities the casino’s new 5,000-seat theatre promises when it opens next year, we’re going to miss shows like this: Big acts playing what feels like your living room.
Nettles and Bush knew it, interacting with the entire space, tossing guitar picks at random, waving to people in the second level who were actually just 10 feet away. At one point Nettles spotted someone’s face on a cellphone in the crowd: “I see you on Facetime, baby girl!”
Despite an abundance of new songs, it felt like a nostalgic night. Sugarland returns to a country scene leaning more old school these days with the emergence of Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell. They even let one of the new guard, Brandy Clark, open things up with a short but potent five-song set that included her instant classic “Girl Next Door,” about how she’s no “Virgin Mary metaphor.”
It took barely 20 minutes to show why she’s one of modern country’s great storytellers.
Things got considerably louder when Sugarland hit the stage to the appropriately named “Bigger,” the title track to their first album in eight years. The Fallsview crowd didn’t need prompting to stand and crowd the stage — the perfect spot for selfies, of course.
They busted out some of their biggest hits early (“All I Want to Do,” “Stuck Like Glue,” “Want To”), with Nettles and Bush still showing the camaraderie that makes them country’s best noncouple.
They’ll roam the stage separately then huddle for a big chorus, Nettles waving her arms to urge the crowd on.
In other words, it looks a lot like a Sugarland show from 2007 or 2010, and that familiarity is what the crowd responds to. It doesn’t make for a surprising show — new song “Lean It on Back” sounds virtually identical to “Want To” — but it’s certainly a comfortable one.
After a brief detour into their solo albums (“People ask, what was it like being on vacation for five years?” explained Bush), the show hit its stride with the excellent “Let Me Remind You” from the new album and “Settlin’” from their second one. It led into a fun medley with Nettles indulging her pop playbook, bringing some Michael Jackson and Madonna into the new song “On a Roll.”
As always, Nettles is the focal point of the show — an unconventional
country singer who’s more Tina Turner on stage. When she’s not singing, she’s dropping well-timed zingers: After a sweet story Friday about getting a note and flowers from someone in the crowd who finally found new love after his wife died, she paused and then added “Now here’s a song about a horrible affair.”
If there’s one legit gripe fans might have after Friday’s show, it’s that it was a tight 17 songs and 80 minutes instead of the usual 22-song set the band has been playing lately in arenas. It meant dropping their fun, show-closing version of “Lady Marmalade.”
Maybe next time, soul sistas. Otherwise, Sugarland found their sweet spot in Niagara Falls.