To be sincere, I dreaded the rhinestone ballsack.
A pair days earlier than Kacey Musgraves arrived in Toronto for the second cease on her Center of Nowhere tour, photos emerged exhibiting the Texas nation star perched atop an enormous, barely asymmetrical scrotum; an enormous pair of glittering truck nuts gliding gracefully above a crowd. Mediated by way of social media, the bit appeared cheesy and gross. In reality, it form of gave me the ick.
Happily, these considerations shortly waned as Musgraves’s seven-piece band took the stage, marching towards their devices like skilled wrestlers as AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blasted by way of Scotiabank Area final night time (August 24).
Moments later, Musgraves appeared on an elevated secondary stage, designed to evoke a dilapidated trailer someplace in Texas. Wearing denim, knee-length boots and a white cowboy hat, with only a splash of glitter on her face, she opened the set with a transferring rendition of “All people Desires to Be a Cowboy,” her sturdy voice projecting virtually tangible heat throughout the venue; her winking allure casting outward like lasso, pulling the adoring viewers tightly into her unusual, trippy orbit, a spot the place something goes.
Musgraves is a beguiling pop star. Outfitted with a twangy voice that appears custom-build for nation radio, she’s spent a lot of her profession difficult the style’s cussed orthodoxies: infusing her music with parts of disco, people and delicate psychedelia, peppering her songs with references to drug use and intercourse.
It is an method she perfected on 2018’s Golden Hour — a elegant nation pop file impressed by Sade and Neil Younger that gained the Grammy for Album of the 12 months — although it appeared to supply diminishing returns on her two subsequent LPs (2021’s underrated breakup album star-crossed and the 2024 snoozefest Deeper Effectively).
Earlier this yr, a lot to the delight of her followers, Musgraves pivoted again to one thing resembling pure nation music Center of Nowhere, an album that leans closely into her Southern roots — which had been on full show at Scotiabank Area as she led her band by way of a crowd-pleasing setlist, acting from on high of an enormous star-shaped stage set inside a bigger, 360-degree rotating stage that resembled a rodeo enviornment.
From the get-go, the viewers — vaguely progressive and queer, if principally — was enraptured, belting each phrase to “Dry Spell,” the humorous lead single from Center of Nowhere about going practically a yr with out intercourse, and swaying alongside to a warped, slowed-down rendition of the Golden Hour favorite “Excessive Horse.”
Halfway by way of the present, Musgraves was joined the stage’s centre by her accordion participant for a pleasant mini-set of Tejano (or Tex-Mex) music, together with her Willie Nelson collaboration “Unsure Texas” and a canopy of a track by Tejano supergroup Texas Tornados.
Elevated by a intelligent set design and immersive visible results (pyro! fireworks!), the efficiency felt absorbing however unpredictable. Not like many different pop artists of her stature, Musgraves doesn’t lean on choreography or costume modifications, relying as an alternative on her simple charisma and the energy of her songwriting.
Reality be instructed, I might forgotten all in regards to the scrote by the point it lastly made an look, about three quarters of the best way into the present.
“It takes a whole lot of balls to stand up right here each night time and do what we do,” Musgraves mentioned because the testicular mass descended from above. “That is what it seems to be like when no one tells me no,” she added, earlier than buckling herself into the genital pouch.
Maybe it was the results of the gentle weed gummy that I ate earlier than the present lastly kicking in, however as Musgraves rose for a efficiency of “Rhinestoned” — a dreamy track about getting excessive to masks the ache of heartache — the glittering ballbag made good sense.
This was not a easy celebration of truck nuts (a typical sight in each Texas and Alberta), however a delicate subversion of the aggressively masculine tradition they’ve come to represent. Nation music is extra malleable than you suppose, the nuts appeared to say. Nation music will be way more queer and bizarre and fascinating than regardless of the dumbfoundingly in style bro-country guys are making. (“Lesbians love Kacey,” Musgraves would later add.)
Heartened by this revelation, I settled fortunately in for the present’s remaining stretch, an excellent run of songs together with the shock hit “Mexico Honey” (the closest Musgraves has ever sounded to Lana Del Rey), in addition to Golden Hour greats “Gradual Burn” and “House Cowboy.”
To shut issues out, Musgraves indulged in a little bit of a fan service, performing her 2013 hit “Observe Your Arrow,” adopted by a canopy of the 1987 George Strait basic “All My Ex’s Reside in Texas.” These landed slightly flat for me, however I felt totally happy leaving the venue, abuzz with that particular post-show vitality and drifty visions of rhinestone disco balls swaying off right into a pastel-coloured sundown.