Margo Price's UK tour reached London last night with an outstanding performance at The Scala in King's Cross.
Opening act was Andrew Combs who did a short acoustic solo set, accompanying himself on guitar. He couldn't be more different from the big strutting male country stars we usually see combing out of Nashville these days. His low key performance was pleasing & he left me intent on checking out more of his songs.
Margo Price took the stage shortly after 9 with a muscular, rocking band and delivered an outstanding high energy performance. Her delivery owes a lot to country pioneers like Loretta Lynn, while her songs are thoroughly contemporary- and totally country.
Mixing songs from her outstanding debut album "Midwest Farmer's Daughter", with covers such as George Jones' "Heartaches and Hangovers" and Loretta Lynn's "Rated X". She rounded off her enthusiastically received set with a spirited rendition of Gram Parson's "Ooh, Las Vegas". Earlier, she introduced her brilliant song "This Town Gets Around" as her giving the Nashville establishment the finger, which she reflected, they gave right back to her when the CMA Nominees were announced Wednesday & Margo's name did not appear once. Of the ballads, the outstanding "Hands of Time" stood out. While her bunch of drinking songs, including the outstanding "Hurtin' (on the bottle" gives the lie to Dierks Bentley's current anodyne song "Different for girls" where he claims that females can't go out and drink whiskey to drown the hurt of a breakup like guys can. Yes they can, & they do. Margo was "drinking whiskey like it's water" in the "Hurtin' " song, just as I have shared drinks with other women post-breakup. Yep, girls get drunk & have one night stands just like us boys to get over heartache!
Anyway, a superb evening and a spirited performance from Margo and her band.