PHOTOS: RICHIE DOWNS | Maren Morris paused a couple of times in her splashy headlining show at The Anthem in DC to take it all in.
It was her largest sellout to date, with 6,000 people, and just about everybody in the young, largely female crowd knew every lyric of her new album, which she only released a couple of months ago.
Its messages of empowerment, love, and occasional loss strike a chord, even if its genre transcends its Nashville roots. There was nary a note in the 100 minute show you’d identify with country music. Even when she picked up an acoustic guitar to sing “A Song to Everything,” its references were to Springsteen, Katy Perry, and Coldplay.
Morris may have come up writing songs recorded by Tim McGraw, but she’s no more country than Taylor Swift these days. In fact, it’s her voice on last year’s ubiquitous dance record, “The Middle,” with which she closed her big show, that brought her a large new audience.
Her main pop influence though, judging from how often it surfaced in the show, is Beyonce, particularly her uplifting “Halo,” which was not only covered at the tail end of “Second Wind,” but seemed to have incorporated into the title song to her new album, Girl, which kicked off the show.
From atop a staircase lined with lights, Morris arose from a hydraulic lift in a glittery cape, boots and hotpants. With a five man band seeming to augment unseen tapes, her voice is precise and soaring, so much so that it’s surprising that she was set on becoming only a songwriter before someone talked her into doing her own songs.
The one that was so much her own that she did sing it, also became her first big Grammy-winning hit, “My Church,” in which she finds her redemption speeding in her car with the windows rolled down and the radio on. Kind of like “Roadrunner,” but this time her references were classic country: “Hank brings the sermon, and Cash leads the choir.”
She saved that anthem for the end of the main set, with a hearty singalong from the crowd that surprised her as well. “Y’all are in tune and everything!” But the bulk of the show was just about everything from Girl and only a handful from her pervious album, Hero.
The best part of the show were short, punchy pop songs that followed one after another: “Make Out with Me,” “Gold Love,” and “Flavor” that had all followed an acoustic “I Could Use a Love Song” which was accompanied not by a pedal steel, but a cello. It also came with a story about a radio programmer who told her people don’t like to hear women singing sad songs, and how she soundly disproved him.
It’s fun to see Morris at the top of her game at 29, and also having the time of her life on a big world tour. She’s also stretching her talents to write R&B songs like “RSVP” that would be a hit for say, Mary J. Blige. But other songs lag on their influences, with a big “9 to 5” stomp on “All My Favorite People,” on which she was joined by Raelynn, the former “Voice” competitor who is carving out her own career more based on the country bad girl, with glitter-spangled, camo-patterned hot pants and some frank and funny songs (some of which have yet to be recorded).
Morris at this point probably doesn’t need to retell her story in concert as if she’s introducing herself to everyone for the first time. In her soaring pop ascent, she will just have to get used to headlining audiences that are even bigger than the Anthem.
RAELYNN
SETLIST
Girl
The Feels
80s Mercades
A Song for Everything
Common
To Hell & Back
All My Favorite People
I Could Use a Love Song
Make Out With Me
Gold Love
Flavor
Great Ones
Second Wind / Halo
Once
Rich
RSVP
The Bones
My Church
Shade
The Middle
