Cheyenne Davis

Miranda Lambert’s “Living Like Hippies” tour arrived at the local Bon Secours Wellness Arena on January 18, 2018. This tour was performed by three headlining musicians; Miranda Lambert was the main headlining singer, accompanied by Brent Cobb and Jon Pardi. Brent Cobb is a country artist with a traditional style. Traditional musicians like himself, are often defined by their preference in slower tempos and acoustic instruments.  Jon Pardi and Miranda Lambert are more modernized, with their songs integrating a more country-rock type of sound with the instruments they seem to like the most, including the electric guitar. However, Miranda did not fail to sing some of her most adored acoustic sounding songs like “Tin Man”, which I will discuss later. In fact, I felt as though there was a nice blend of musical differences within the show.

The show opened with Brent Cobb. Brent Cobb is a country singer-songwriter who is signed to Low Country Sounds. He has released two albums during his career thus far; one of his albums, “Shine on Rainy day” was nominated for a Grammy. His father Patrick Cobb and his grandfather have been a great influence in his life and career. I say this because he references them many times throughout his performances. Some of the crowd favorites that Brent sang were, “Diggin’ holes”, and “Ain’t a road too long”. These songs embody the ideal hardworking farm life than many country music fans relate to. His visuals included a limited amount of lighting tricks, because he is a more traditional singer. The intense lighting tricks would not have fit his music the way that they did with other more upbeat songs. Also, he played his guitar along with the band during many of his songs. Overall, I enjoyed his performance because I had not heard any of his songs beforehand which allowed me to pay more attention to his style and tone rather than the songs I already knew the words to.

After Brent Cobbs performance there was an intermission, and after the intermission Jon Pardi came to the stage. Jon Pardi is a country artist that has had many big hits in the year 2017. Some of these include “Dirt on My Boots”, “Head over boots”, and “Heartache on the Dance Floor”. All of these songs have been played on the radio recently which has made him well known in the country music industry. Pardi’s visual aid consisted of a platform with his name written across it. He chose to sing in front of this platform instead of on top of it. I believe this platform was a technique to get people to remember his name if they had not heard of him before. He also used lighting tricks; more lighting tricks were used by Pardi than in Brent Cobb’s performance. I find this to be notable, because it seemed as though the farther that the show progressed the more lighting was used as a means to enhance the performer.

Once Pardi had finished his performance, there was another intermission. By now the Wellness Arena had filled up with people. During the other performances many people had not arrived at their seats yet. The show starts with the band playing and Miranda walks onto the stage from the left side. The crowd cheers loudly, and she immediately begins singing. Miranda Lambert is a well-known country music artist with 6 albums; Lambert’s first album dropped in 2005. She has two recent Grammy nominations of Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance with her song “Tin Man”.

Miranda’s song choices for this tour reflected a hippie lifestyle through the lyrical themes of “escaping” and traveling. Miranda also included more meaningful songs pertaining to heartbreak and family.  Additionally, she included a few of her popular songs from the beginning of her career so that her fans could sing along to their old favorites. These songs include “Gunpowder and lead”, “White liar”, and “Kerosene”. All of these songs deal with failed relationships and the empowerment she feels when she finally takes a stand. I personally enjoyed the amount of depth most of her songs had emotionally. She sang about heartbreak and healing, which is no surprise due to her recent struggles with her life in 2015. These struggles stem from her divorce with Blake Shelton around that time. Not only the divorce, but the judgement she faced by the public while she was trying to heal. In fact, Lambert made an aside comment before one of her songs to state, “in 2015 I experienced a lot of heartbreak; I got a lot of songs out of it though”. Upon hearing this the crowd cheered encouragingly, and the screen turned to black and white so that she could sing her heartfelt song “Tin Man” which has been widely played on the radio in recent months. Tin Man is a conversational piece between Miranda and the tin man in The Wizard of Oz. in this conversation Miranda offers to give her heart to the tin man in exchange for his armor but also warns him that her heart is “in pieces now”. This song seemed to be different and disconnected from many of her other songs that night due to its tone, but it was also one of the most powerful. The lyrics coupled with the visuals really made an impact on the crowd’s emotional connection to the song.

Personally, I enjoyed the lighting tricks and the background displays the most. The music was great, but the impact would not have been as great were it not for the visuals. The visuals really emphasized the meaning of the songs as well as preset the mood for slower songs if one was played after a more upbeat one. For instance, in Miranda’s well-known song “Gunpowder and Lead” the visuals depicted lots of red lights and orange flames to emphasize the feelings of revenge that the song portrays. The slower songs like “Tin Man” were given black and white colors or soft colors that elicit a somber feeling to the audience. I was interested to see the way that the many different groups were working together as well. The tech team, backup singers, band members, and sponsors were all given recognition and introduction; Each of these members of the team had obvious roles in the overall success of the concert.

Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the similarities in the songs to the studio versions of the songs. Each performer did an excellent job of crowd engagement and overall performance, and I was also satisfied with the conversations that the performers were having with the audience that made it seems as though we were friends. I believe that the audience truly enjoyed the show, because they seemed to be attentive and involved throughout its entirety. People were singing along and dancing almost all night. The significance I found about this concert was that even though it was a school night for many people, and snow and ice were still on the ground, people went out of their way to enjoy the show. I believe the ability for people to attend an event live is a fulfilling experience, because the energy of being with other people who love the same music is a connection that is unexplainable. The entire experience was one to remember.