EVERETT – Martina McBride fans filled the Everett Events Center on Saturday night with a welcome fit only for a fantastic singer ready to blow the top off the stadium.
The tiny woman with a huge, huge voice arrived to roars from adoring fans and via floor lift, slowly from below the black ramps.
McBride opened her set with the jewel “Anyway” from her most recent album “Waking Up Laughing” before the applause was over.
Throughout the 90-plus minute set, McBride and her band proved to fans what a great show was all about.
Hits old and new such as “Cry Cry (‘Til the Sun Shines),” “Wild Angels” and “Rose Garden” meant that the audience was on their feet, singing and dancing most of the night.
When it came to the hit “Tryin’ to Find a Reason,” a duet she performs with country singer Keith Urban, McBride crooned with her brother, Marty Schiff, who plays in the band. The pair made a smooth, solid duet.
McBride is cool, calm and collected, and other than her suede and leather black pants with shabby chic lace shirt coat, her glitter and glitz is all in the details.
There are no wardrobe changes or styled choreography. McBride’s concerts showcase what she is all about, which is a powerful voice in a genre that is becoming heavy with slight twang acts difficult to identify. There is no doubt that along with only the likes of perhaps Wynonna, McBride rises to the top of that pack. Her voice is so naturally powerful that it will be hard for any other country talent to take her crown.
McBride is no newcomer to the music scene, and it shows. Her first album was released in 1992 and from there she has proven herself to be a force in country music.
The lighting at the Events Center was brilliant, and during “Concrete Angel,” a poignant number about a little girl who is beaten to death, presumably by her mother, the large lighting screens served as information boards. The crowd fell silent when at the end of the song 800-4-A-CHILD, the National Child Abuse Hotline, appeared on the screens.
The concert changed mood throughout the evening as McBride crooned hits like “Love’s The Only House” then delighted almost every woman in the Everett Events Center with “This One’s For the Girls.”
“How I Feel” was another crowd favorite co-written by McBride and possibly one of the best songs to showcase her extraordinary vocal range on this challenging tune.
Two little girls came to the front of the crowd for “Happy Girl,” which is what they were when McBride leaned down to accept their roses.
With shout outs on cardboard from fans that said “Monroe Loves Martina McBride” and others just whooping it up, McBride looked as if she was having as much fun as the crowd. She was certainly appreciative when fans screamed and shouted, not wanting to stop, after “Where Would You Be?”
McBride’s voice was as good after the 15th song as it was after the first.
Fans left the Everett Events Center on Saturday taking their elated moods out into the streets, especially after the final encore, a rendition of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” which, in more ways than one, is what McBride did for the fans on Saturday.
Christina Harper is a Snohomish Country freelance writer. She can be reached at harper@heraldnet.com.
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