Ashley McBryde, alongside Kip Moore and Lainey Wilson, completes the triumvirate of Country music artists that the UK crowd have adopted as their own. All three artists came across the Atlantic in the early stages of their label careers and created a substantial buzz that they were able to take back to the States and build upon. It’s been a sheer delight watching Ashley McBryde build her career from scrappy, hungry performer to this slick, authentic artiste that we saw in Birmingham on the ‘Devil I Know’ tour.
McBryde famously came to London to play the C2C festival in 2018. She played every stage she could, met as many people as she could and impressed everyone. It was her set at the Indigo on the Saturday afternoon which is still the stuff of legend today. Here we are, four albums later and that raw, charismatic, authentic performer is back in the UK again on a sold-out tour that has all the hallmarks of being one of the best of the year and it’s only January!
Opening with the raucous ‘Blackout Betty’ McBryde set the tone for the evening to come. There’s a confidence and audacity to McBryde’s performances now that wasn’t there in 2018. She commands attention and she tells the stories in every song with the expressions on her face : a grin here, a shake of the head there, raised eyebrows and grimaces abound as McBryde takes us on a journey through her world of bars, bras and southern behaviours. The scrappy fighter who came to the UK in 2018 armed only with a guitar and a decade’s worth of stories has been replaced by someone altogether more composed but no less emotional, no less determined to win every over last person in the crowd with her brand of music, humour and storytelling.
Every song in this setlist has been carefully positioned to provide the audience with an emotion. Each is there to do a job, sometimes, in the case of ‘6th October’ it’s to provide a mid-set breather (which will still make you think) whilst others, like the final third double whammy of ‘Coldest Beer in Town’ and ‘El Dorado’ are designed to get you up and dancing. Delving deeper, there’s almost 3 shows within a show going on in McBryde’s setlist on this tour. The first part ran from ‘Blackout Betty’ to ‘Girl Goin Nowehere.’ Here we see a bombastic opening, a hit thrown in early, some down-home southern comedy with ‘Brenda Put Your Bra On,’ during which McBryde throws a bra (but not her bra!) out into the audience and some traditional Country music. The back-to-back pairing of ‘Ain’t Enough Water in the River’ followed by ‘Made For This’ was an almost breathless combination that could only be followed by the impactful ‘Girl Goin Nowhere.’ This brought the first big emotional speech of the night from McBryde as she talked about her first visit to the UK in 2018 and everything that the country and its people have come to mean to her. The crowd sang along and tears were definitely shed.
It’s hard to follow a song like ‘Girl Goin Nowhere’ but Ashley McBryde knows what she’s doing! A cool segue into a little mid-set southern bar vibe saw ‘First Thing I Reach For’ begin to pick up the pace again followed by ‘Cool Little Bars’ as McBryde talked about growing up in awe on the songs written in Nashville on 16th Avenue and how she wrote ‘Cool Little Bars’ with Lainey Wilson on 17th! ‘Learned to Lie’ benefitted from added instrumentation and was a much bigger beast, sonically, than its recorded incarnation. Kudos to McBryde’s guitarist for the searing solo that ends that song whilst ‘Sparrow’ brought this section of the show to a close in truly anthemic fashion. Similarly, as with ‘Learned to Lie’, live, ‘Sparrow’ is a monster song, performed with chest-thumping bombast by McBryde and her band that pins you to your seat with its intensity and impact. McBryde, somewhat overwhelmed by this point in proceedings and very much in the moment, explained that this was the 103rd show of the tour and she talked about the danger of sometimes slipping into an almost auto-pilot-esque rhythm during live shows. This was definitely not one of those nights! Already emotional, she caught sight of her drummer’s parents in the crowd during the first part of ‘Sparrow’ and couldn’t sing the lines needed to take the song on. As the band trod water McBryde composed herself, told us why, and the song picked up from where it had stalled in effortless fashion. It’s moments like this that you see just how much music and the people around her mean to Ashley McBryde and it’s a pleasure and a privilege to be part of her world.
The third, and final, part of the show is really designed to bring everything you’ve been part of so far towards a big climax, sending you home happy and exhausted! The final run of songs from ‘Coldest Beer in Town’ builds in intensity, through the Springsteen-esque ‘El Dorado’ through to set closer and heaviest song of the night, ‘The Devil I Know.’ In between we got a detailed breakdown of the writing process behind ‘……Dahlonega’ which only added to the impact of the song and the beautiful ‘Light on in the Kitchen’ – another quieter, delicate song on record that is fuller, bigger and lusher in its live format. A huge shout out must go to Wes Dorethy who plays keys, fiddle, guitar and harmonica in McBryde’s band. A true unsung hero, what he brings to her live sound really rounds off the sonic tapestry and adds real heft to the landscape of her songs.
With the 11pm curfew fast approaching, McBryde only had time to come back on stage for one encore song but what a great decision it has been to put ‘Martha Divine’ back in the setlist. Sacrificing ‘Bible and a .44’ to close down in bombastic Rock-mode was absolutely the right decision on a night like this and so we all plotted revenge against our daddy’s lover, punched our fists in the air one final time and went home absolutely not tired of being happy!
Going to see Ashley McBryde live is like gaining entrance to one of the coolest and most secret clubs around. It’s a wild ride of emotions and the person in charge wants you to know that she cares about each and everyone of you. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll sing your heart out, plot murder, dance and feel all the feels but through it all, under McBryde’s authentic and honest stewardship, you’ll be taken care of. And you can tell that that still means everything to her.
Setlist: 1. Blackout Betty 2. One Night Standards 3. Brenda Put Your Bra On 4. Whiskey and Country Music 5. Single at the Same Time 6. Ain’t Enough Water in the River 7. Made for This 8. Girl Goin Nowhere 9. First Thing I Reach For 10. Cool Little Bars 11. Learned to Lie 12. Women Ain’t Whiskey 13. Sparrow 14. 6th October 15. Coldest Beer in Town 16. El Dorado 17. Tired of Being Happy 18. A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega 19. Light on in the Kitchen 20. The Devil I Know 21. Martha Divine Venue: O2 Institute, Birmingham, UK Date: Sunday January 21st
