Lorrie Morgan et Pam Tillis

Lorrie Morgan is the pride of Tennessee. She’s been flogging out country and western hits for decades and is showing no signs of slowing. She broke out into the country charts in 1989 with the single ‘Trainwreck of Emotion’ and has been a mainstay in the Billboard Hot Country chart ever since.

She’s had three number ones: ‘Five Minutes’ off her debut, Leave the Light On (1990), the sassy ‘What Part of No’ off Watch Me (1992) and the later single ‘I Didn’t Know My Own Strength’ off The Colour of Roses (2002).

These days she’s no spring chicken, but she’s as charming as ever. She still pulls off the bell-bottomed, low-waisted jeans, the snazzy, silk-embroidered blazer, the oversized jewellery and glittery country guiutar to match. And she still has the warming classic country-singer smile, making happy banter with the audience in her cheeky Southern drawl.

Every song she plays is recognised and given a hearty reception; it is apparent that there are some real fans here. There’s a great amount of starry-eyed singing along and the atmosphere is just like old times.

From the moment that Pam Tillis walked out on stage, it was evident that she was totally at home in front of the huge crowd, and her guitar was simply an extension of herself through which she was expressing her music. Although she’s been performing since the 80s, she hasn’t lost her magic at all, and her incredible talent both on the guitar and vocally, really shone through and reminded everyone in the crowd why she’s achieved so much success. Her country music set journeyed through up beat tracks, as well as the slower ballads, to which she had everyone singing along.

Throughout the show, I think Tillis succeeded in having the crowd on their feet pretty much from start to finish, swaying and dancing along when appropriate. The way that she has so much control over her vocals is amazing, and the trills and improvisations that don’t appear on her recordings were simply magical to hear live. She played a great set, and played all of her hits from over the years, and even let the audience shout out requests for her. Towards the end of the show, she focused on Dos Divas, her newest album, and even revealed that she’s working on new material, which was met with huge applause from the crowd. She’s incredibly talented, and hopefully she’ll keep writing and performing for many years to come.