September 11th, 2019

Kacey Musgraves has spent the better part of the last eighteen months on the road in support of her two-time Grammy-winning Album of the Year, Golden Hour. On Friday night she finally made a stop in Cleveland to a sold out, colorful crowd at Jacobs Pavilion on the banks of the teeming, late summer Cuyahoga River.
 

Opening the show with the first track “Slow Burn," the Texas native had the crowd singing at the top of their lungs from the first lines of “Born in a hurry, always late. Haven’t been early since ’88," which seemed fitting as the crowd was getting antsy waiting between set changes.

The rest of the set relied heavy on Golden Hour; for the next ninety minutes she played all thirteen tracks from that record. Spending so much time on the road, playing shows can wear one’s voice at but on Friday night it sounded as Kacey was just starting the Golden Hour cycle and not coming close to winding it down. She sounded pitch-perfect through everything (especially her solo acoustic “Mother” and her take of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” which was a lovely cover.
 

Her band, The Crispy Boyz, jammed out during “Golden Hour” and “Family Is Family.” Both jams where toe-tappers that helped to showcase a departure from the album. During the middle of the set, Ms. Musgraves and the Boyz took to the front of the stage in a circle to perform stripped-down versions of “Oh, What a World," “Family Is Family," and “Love Is A Wild Thing." As is the norm at Jacobs, a large freigher made its way upriver towards the lake during the quietest moments of the show, of course, making the band stop and proclaim: “That’s a huge boat!”
 

The concert itself was like a neon dream: Playing like a rainbow anime on stage. Fans could purchase RetroSpecs from the merch tent for $3; most of the younger crowd probably had never used the old school 3D-glasses until that time, which gave the festivities a psychedelic aura as the glasses acted like a beam-splitter, sending prismatic colors all throughout the venue. It was a nice, interactive addition  for the crowd and made the stage just as colorful as the audience and its rainbow cape-sporting attendees.
 

She ended the night with Brook & Dunn’s “Neon Moon” and the hit single “High Horse”. Friday nights weather was perfect, the venue was perfect and Kacey put a cap on a perfect topping on a run that has been nothing sort spectacular.
 

Yola, a British blues and Americana singer, opened the show with a powerful, big, voice and a retro sound. She was a great act to get the crowd going and ready and a name that will be heard a lot in the coming months and years.

Review by Troy Smith

Photos by Brian M. Lumley