Proof that country is best served raw
Miranda Lambert has been a queen of country for more than a decade. An East Texan, Lambert is adored and decorated for her scorching six-album back catalogue, a combination of vitriolic revenge anthems, tender odes to love and heartbreak, and upbeat, hard-party drinking songs. For four years, she was married to fellow singer Blake Shelton; the divorce of Nashville’s sweethearts was mined in depth on last year’s triumphant The Weight of These Wings.
On her first solo tour outside North America, and at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, the tiny blonde star was joined by an eight-piece band to open with racy hits Fastest Girl in
Town and Kerosene, which set the tone for a high-energy evening.
Lambert is a sterling songwriter and guitarist, and possesses a nimble, commanding twang, just unpolished enough to convey great emotion at little strain. It was a pity, then, that these gifts were frequently lost in a cacophony of overzealous guitars and drums. While such brio felt fitting on defiant break-up favourite Mama’s Broken Heart and domestic-abuse condemnation Gunpowder and Lead, it was jarringly at odds with the gossamer harmonies of Heart Like Mine and Over You. It wasn’t until the encore of the introspective Tin Man that Lambert’s delicate artistry was truly on display.
On stage before her were Ward Thomas. Not often does a support act guarantee a full house, but such is the devotion to the 23-year-old Hampshireborn twins Catherine and Lizzy who, since 2014, have been blazing a trail for British country music and whose second record Cartwheels made them the first UK country act to chart at number one. In a short and unadorned performance, their lovely natural harmonies soared at their sweetest on Cartwheels; their power hitting its stride in irresistible scorned-lover single Guilty Flowers.
The girls charm best when not aping southern honky-tonk styles, which never fails to feel inauthentic and happened too often here.
Tonight, women of country from both sides of the Atlantic proved their talents shine most brightly when performed at their rawest.