By Ken Paulson —
Eleven is the title of Martina McBride’s latest album, and those digits began the onscreen countdown for her performance at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville tonight.
That bit of stagecraft foreshadowed a generous two-hour set spanning most of her hits and a surprising number of covers. Martina told the audience from the outset that this would be a more intimate evening, allowing her to perform at her own pace and interact with the audience.
Despite her gift for ballads, the set was consistently up-tempo, with particularly driving performances of “This One’s For the Girls” and “When God-Fearin’ Women Get the Blues,” among others.
We’ve always admired McBride’s gravitation to songs with a social conscience and she delivered both Gretchen Peters’ “Independence Day” and Buzz Cason and Tom Douglas’ “Love’s the Only House” with passion and energy.
Most surprising was her remarkable arrays of covers, including “Rose Garden” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” from her Timeless album. Her take on Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” was great fun, and her encore of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” were as joyous as a 1984 prom.
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