UNCASVILLE, Conn. – Cowboy hats, cowboy boots, jeans and plaid shirts were a common sight Saturday night at Mohegan Sun for a concert by country superstars Lady Antebellum. The Take Me Downtown tour started in January and has the band crossing the country until the end of the summer. Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood formed Lady Antebellum in 2006 and have quickly risen to the cream of the country crop with a slew of number one songs and sold out concert dates around the country.
As the lights went down, Lady A appeared opposite the main stage of the arena on a small stage in front of the soundboard and kicked the concert off with their hit single Compass. Walking straight through the crowd, the band slowly made their way to the enormous stage that extended through the audience allowing the band to get up close and personal with the fans during the show.
Quickly going through a number of songs including Better Off Now(That You’re Gone), Our Kind of Love, Get to Me and Just a Kiss, the three main members that make of Lady A were in top form and had the approval of the crowd as well. Love Don’t Live Here came next and was announced as their very first single ever released as a group.
During the song American Honey, lead singer Charles Kelley (brother of musician Josh Kelley) proceeded to take out a GoPro camera (a hand held video camera) and head in the crowd to take some close ups of himself and the fans that were then broadcast on a giant screen behind the band. This provided some good laughs as he was singing face to face with some of the female fans. As soon as he was done with the camera, Haywood attached it to the bottom of his guitar for a rocking solo that gave the crown a completely different look at a musician playing his instrument.
After playing It Ain’t Pretty and the band’s first ever number one country single, I Run to You, things slowed down a bit with an acoustic set that brought the entire band out to the furthest points of the stage. During the acoustic version of their song And The Radio Played, the band had a giant video screen showing a large number of country superstars albums or song titles that went along with the lyrics in the song. Finishing out the acoustic set, Lady A invited openers Kip Moore and Kasey Musgrave to the stage for a version of Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down.
Rounding out the set were the songs Downtown, Lookin’ for a Good Time and We Owned The Night. The band took about three minutes before coming back out for encores Need You Now, an Aviici cover song, Wake Me Up and another cover song originally done by Anna Kendrick, When I’m Gone.
Kasey Musgrave fresh off the heels of her impressive Grammy wins for Best Country Song and Best Country Album (Same Trailer Different Park) opened the concert with a somewhat less than energetic performance. Musgrave played more than half the songs off her debut album while slipping in Don’t Worry Be Happy in the middle of the song Step Off. Grammy winning song Merry Go Round was played towards the end of the set to the delight of the crowd.
