Harmonies are Little Big Town’s calling card
Vocals set Nashville-based quartet apart
Whether it’s floating down a lazy river on a pontoon or getting caught up in a tornado, Little Big Town currently has the country music world by the tail.
The Nashville, Tenn.based quartet — Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet — brought its first headlining tour to Regina’s Conexus Arts Centre on Thursday night and delivered an impressive 19-song, 90-minute set.
For a band that has only recently reached the upper echelons of the business with its first No. 1 single (Pontoon) and No. 1 album (Tornado), it was obvious from its polished performance that Little Big Town has put in the years of work to hone its craft.
Although the majority of its songs are closer to pop than traditional country, Little Big Town doesn’t allow genre dividing lines to stand in the way of its remarkable sound.
The four-part harmonies are Little Big Town’s foundation and have become its trademark. It’s the vocals that set Little Big Town apart from other high-profile bands in country music — Rascal Flatts has a somewhat similar sound but that’s as close as it gets.
Taking to the stage at 8:30 p.m. sharp, Little Big Town raced through Pavement Ends, Little White Church, On Fire Tonight, Sober and Bones before taking a quick moment to acknowledge the crowd.
Westbrook and Fairchild, who are husband and wife, then presented perhaps the most traditional country song of the night, On Your Side Of The Bed. The ballad is a true country song full of anguish and pain — both people in the relationship realize it has run its course but neither is strong enough to step forward and end it.
While Little Big Town writes a large portion of its own material, it also uses tunes from other writers and Westbrook spoke fondly of one such song, Can’t Go Back.
“Sometimes you hear a song that moves you like you’ve never been moved before and this song felt exactly like that for us,” Westbrook said.
The band has also become well known for its cover songs and Thursday’s show included songs from Fleetwood Mac (The Chain), John Mayer (Born And Raised) and Lady Gaga (Born This Way). It was interesting to hear LBT’s take on Lady Gaga, described by Fairchild as “Ga-grass.”
LBT ended the set with Pontoon, which dominated radio airplay throughout the summer of 2012 and earned the band a Grammy Award for best country duo/ group performance.
The encore opened with Tornado, a song about a scorned woman who warns her former partner that she’s going to get her revenge. Given how intensely Fairchild sings the song, you definitely believe this woman is going to get her pound of flesh.
The evening was brought to a close with Boondocks, LBT’s first Top 10 single.
While it didn’ t have the power of Little White Church, it did give the crowd the opportunity to participate in a little singalong with LBT.
High Valley opened the evening with a fun and energetic 40-minute set that caught the crowd’s attention. The band — brothers Brad, Bryan and Curtis Rempel, from La Crete, Alta. — filled its set with something old, something new and something different.
The old portion included singles like A Father’s Love, Have I Told You I Love You Lately, Let It Be Me and On The Combine. Something new was I Want To Rescue You, a song that has yet to be recorded or released.
And for different, well, there were a couple of options. The first was a beautiful rendition of the bluegrass gospel classic I’m Ready To Go while the second was a cover of One Direction’s What Makes You Beautiful.
Like LBT, the foundation for High Valley is in its harmonies — Brad provides strong lead vocals but when Bryan and Curtis jump into the mix, it’s a sound that’s clean and exquisite.