Were the Highwomen, we sing of stories still untold, sang Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby at their first full-concert performance as the Highwomen Friday evening at the Newport Folk Festival. The supergroup was also backed by a band that included Jason Isbell and the Hanseroth Twins during the hourlong set.
This is our first show yall, and were fucking terrified, Carlile told the crowd early on. But the bands debut show was rapturously received. The group traded off vocals in each others songs, performing their forthcoming debut album in-order before reprising their lead single Redesigning Women for a bonus encore performance.
Shires sang a song for her father (Cocktail and a Song), Carlile paid tribute to the passing generation of Highwaymen like Kris Kristofferson (Heaven is a Honky Tonk), Hemby offered up an ode to all the suburban moms (My Only Child), and Morris channeled Seventies Dolly Parton country stomp (Loose Change).
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But the apex of the Highwomens set came halfway through when Carlile debuted a tears-in-your-beers piano ballad If She Ever Leaves Me, which she described as the first gay country song. Thats too much cologne, Carlile sang in the song, she likes perfume.
Before the song, Isbell told the story of bringing the same-sex country love song that he co-write with Shires and Chris Tompkins to Carlile for the first time. It was kind of like taking my civil rights movie to Spike Lee, he joked.
The set also included some special guests, including Sheryl Crow and British singer-songwriter Yola, whose debut album Walk Through Fire has been a highlight of 2019.
By the time the group finished their set with Wheels of Laredo, the new Carlile original that also appears on Tanya Tuckers forthcoming album, it was clear that country musics newest supergroups first time on stage had been a triumph. Were the Highwomen, Carlile told the crowd as the foursome received a standing ovation, and were pleased to meet ya.