The annual Country2Country festival, which showcases the best of Nashville, is growing in stature, and with that come the complaints that things ain’t what they used to be. At the launch of the 2016 event, set to take place in London, Glasgow and Dublin next March, an audience member grabs a microphone to say icily: “This heavy brother country you get now, it’s far too loud. Last year, it was so loud that this place was shaking.”
Little Big Town, here to play a condensed version of their usual set, may be guilty of turning up the amps, but they’re an antidote to hard-partying bro-country rather than a symptom. The Grammy-winning male/female quartet are closer in feel to Fleetwood Mac; silvery harmonies abound, and the recent smash ballad Girl Crush, a wracked female perspective on losing a man to another woman, is essentially Rumours-era Mac with a Georgia accent. If anything, they lose traction tonight when they dip into country traditionalism: the down-home ballad Bring It on Home is a plodder compared to, say, Tumble and Fall’s glimmering four-part harmonies, or the tension that builds during Kimberly Schlapman’s frozen kiss-off (“I ain’t your priest, get up off your knees”) on Save Your Sin.
“We are so stinkin’ happy to be here,” says Schlapman, who with Karen Fairchild is the band’s emotional fulcrum. The two take most of the lead vocals on songs from their sixth album, Pain Killer, while Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet play guitar and chip in with harmonies. Only Westbrook’s stark vocal on Faster Gun compares to the women’s raw readings of songs that broach both classic country tropes and new territory, such as Girl Crush’s brush with what turns out not to be a lesbian attachment.
“It’s good to play for music lovers,” says Fairchild, and the feeling’s mutual – for there is a lot to love about her band.
