Country superstar brings her Country’s Cool Again Tour to Vancouver on Sept. 26.
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Lainey Wilson: Country’s Cool Again Tour
When: Sept. 26, 7 p.m.
Where: Rogers Arena
Lainey Wilson released her fifth album at the end of August. Titled Whirlwind, the record is already living up to its name blowing up the charts.
The Baskin, La., star is hitting the road on the Country’s Cool Again Tour that comes to Vancouver in September. The tour takes its name from one of Whirlwind’s promotional singles.
With it’s clap-along chorus about how things have changed today and even city folk want a backwoods front porch and a tub full of ice cold beer, the track is certainly in keeping with Wilson’s award-winning mix of old-time Dolly Parton pop country meets Southern rock anthem.
Over Zoom from her family farm, she talked about recording the latest record and mending the bellbottoms she split onstage in a performance.
“We sewed ’em up and they are ready for another round,” said Wilson. “It just goes to show you that we all put our pants on the same way and we can all split them sometimes.”
Wilson’s 2024 Grammy-winning album is titled Bell Bottom Country. The singer’s pants are certainly her signature look, even going viral on TikTok. Bells this big haven’t been seen since the early 1970s. It’s an image she’s developed over the past decade of rising stardom.
“It feels like I’m right where I’m supposed to be and, if it had happened when I thought I wanted it to happen, it would have been too soon,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d lived enough life to tell the stories I wanted to tell when I started 10 years ago and I needed to live a little bit more and it’s caught up. Watching people fall in love with the way I grew up, riding horses, wearing Wranglers and the Western way of life was what made me write Country’s Cool Again.”
With her chosen genre bigger than ever, she has also seen the room under the big hat expand to include all manner of music styles. Whirlwind reflects this with songs ranging from Ring Finger’s hard-rock, 4X4XU veering into Doobie Brothers’ yacht rock and the title track fully in tune with Laurel Canyon California pop.
“Whirlwind feels like Stevie Nicks to me, for sure,” she said. “But the real reason you hear all that variety is because my bandleader and guitarist Rob McNelley used to be in a punk band, the other members come from all sorts of backgrounds and the producer, Jay Joyce, is far more rock/pop based. I can listen to the record and hear each of their parts and that’s what I wanted from the people who have been riding the roads with me in a bus for the past 10 years.”
The more organic sound of Whirlwind is a reflection of the miles logged in with the band. Their high-energy delivery has made past hits such as Watermelon Moonshine, Heart Like a Truck and Save Me fan faves in concert and earned Wilson the 2023 CCMA Entertainer of the Year Award.
You just know that they will be blazing through new bangers such as Hang Tight Honey.
“The guys who I wrote that song with — Jason Nix, Paul Sikes and Driver Williams — had started it as a show opener for me, sending me a couple of verses and a suggested chorus idea,” she said. “But when I went in to finish it, it changed around a lot with things like the ooh-oohs in the chorus actually coming from a guitar part on the original demo that Jay thought it would be better if I sang. The cool thing about songwriting is that it keeps you on your toes, with the best idea winning being the goal.”
An example of this is the tender closing song Whiskey Colored Crayon. Wilson says she had never written a song like it.
“My co-writer on that likes to start every day with word games, in this case things I hate like whiskey, and the next something you can create with, like a crayon,” she said. “From there, I went after the moving story that could be told coming from that word exercise. I’m not the kind of songwriter who writes songs about spinning around in a dress and smelling the roses.”
She says she looks forward to playing her hits and soon-to-be classics from Whirlwind on the coming tour.
Five great Lainey Wilson songs
Wilson had a decade of hit-making to her credit before heading out on this year’s Country’s Cool Again Tour. It could be argued that the Louisiana singer is one of the artists responsible for making the genre go global in recent years.
Her blending of new and old country production and arranging styles mixed with some pretty pointed lyrics established her as a one to watch.
The mantle stuffed with trophies and awards is proof that she had the right chops and they keep on coming on the recently released Whirlwind.
Here are five of her finest twangs:
1. Things a Man Oughta Know: The No. 1 single that pretty much broke Wilson remains one of her most popular and with good reason. It’s classic country preaching with a near-Dolly production quality that makes it somewhat timeless.
2. Workin’ Overtime: A bit more rockin’ and a whole lot of fun, this ode to paying the bills and living as large as possible includes the most badass pair of giant bellbottoms to be seen this side of the 1970s. Top marks for the searing guitar lead too.
3. Good Horses: A lilting ballad featuring Miranda Lambert harmonizing on about as good as a chorus as you could ask for in a stadium singalong. The line about not needing a rope to love me has sparked some good-natured online comments and the spelling of the word Deddy for daddy is classic.
4. Watermelon Moonshine: An ode to back 40 tailgate bashes, a Mason jar full of Everclear and sweet juice, and the memory of the first time. A love song served up with more than a few shots of bitter melancholy shaken and stirred in with the happy bits.
5. Hang Tight Honey: This single from Whirlwind hits with some Nancy Sinatra-style energy in the go-go dancing video clip and lays down a honky-tonk boogie that was born for road trips turned up full blast as the bayou blows on past. It’s pure ’70s Southern rock.