By Emilia Benton
“Magical” was the one word country singer Martina McBride used to describe her experience performing at Radio City Music Hall Saturday last month and it was plain to see that her audience agreed.
After opening the show with her cover of “Thanks a Lot,” by Ernest Tubb, an astonished McBride told the crowd that she couldn’t believe her first performance at Radio City Music Hall would be to a sold out audience, “Tonight, I truly feel like I’ve reached the top,” she gushed.
During the first hour, McBride performed almost all the songs on her latest album, “Timeless,” a collection of country covers.
Highlights included a feisty version of Loretta Lynn’s, “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “I Still Miss Someone” by Johnny Cash and a bouncy cover of Lynn Anderson’s “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” McBride ended this part of the show with Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man,” a cover not included on the album.
McBride said that Wynette was one of the first people to really make her feel welcome when she first arrived in Nashville to launch her career.
The overall feeling of the show was purely sentimental, with McBride sharing stories of her childhood dreams growing up in Kansas and her happiness when she heard her eight-month-old daughter say “mama” for the first time backstage that night.
After a 15-minute intermission, McBride returned to the stage to perform her own hits from the past, earning her a series of standing ovations.
She opened with “When God-Fearing Women Get the Blues” a song about her favorite type of heroine – the angry woman.
Her set list was a mixture of feel-good and “issue songs,” like 2002’s “Concrete Angel,” a heart-wrenching story of a young girl who suffers through child abuse.
McBride’s second hour also included something unusual for such a big concert: she had her opening act, the Warren Brothers, find two people in the audience to request songs for McBride to perform that weren’t included on her set list.
The first audience member chose “God’s Will,” McBride’s last single from her previous album, 2003’s “Martina.” The second fan chose “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” made famous in 1989 by Pat Benetar, McBride’s childhood idol. McBride’s energetic version of this song was obviously the highlight of the entire show.
Later, McBride impressed the crowd with her performance of “A Broken Wing.”
Her last song was the one that made her truly famous, the controversial 1993 hit, “Independence Day,” in which an abused wife burns down her home.
After 28 songs, McBride made it appear that she was done for the night, but instead she returned to stage to finish off the night with an encore performance of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz.
As McBride paid tribute to the traditional country music she grew up listening to, it’s highly possible that some other country artist will be paying tribute to McBride herself years from now.