The one-time “Camper Trailer Girl” owns the big arena stage during NFR.
This year has been a life-changing one for Lainey Wilson. Every song she released went straight to the top of the charts. Every award she was nominated for she won. And every show she played was sold-out. Like her Vegas show on Saturday, December 7 — her very last show of the unforgettable year.
After two hours of nonstop music, it was clear that Wilson had saved the best for last.
It was everything you’d expect from an arena show, especially one in Las Vegas, where all around you is over-the-top opulence. Wilson’s show was no exception: fringe, studs, bling, a light show, a walk through the crowd, and a hydraulic platform to raise her up on her latest song, “Somewhere Over Laredo.”
But Wilson balanced all of that spectacle with some intentionally quiet moments. One special standout was a medley of classic country songs from Vince Gill, Dwight Yoakam, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that launched her into her own “Country’s Cool Again.”
Another intimate moment came when Wilson took a seat at the front of the stage alone and opened up about falling in love with country music.
“I just feel so, so blessed. I mean, it was not even last year when we were talking about, ‘Maybe one day we can play the T-Mobile Arena.’ We are doing it. We are marking so many things off our bucket list. And before we go any further, I just want to say thank you all so much for making my dreams come true more than I could’ve ever imagined.
“This is the only thing I know how to do. This is the only thing I want to do. Thank you for letting me share my gift with y’all. It means the world to us. Now I wanna play one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. I love storytelling, and I think that’s why I fell in love with country music. I’m from northeast Louisiana. I’m very proud to be where I’m from. Where I’m from, those people would give you the shirt off their back. They are hardworking, good people. And that’s the kind of town that raised me.”
Before she started to play her ballad about a child with an alcoholic father, “Whiskey-Colored Crayon,” Wilson explained why it was her favorite song she’s ever written. “When you’re from a town of 170 people, there’s not a lot to do except help your daddy farm or sit around the kitchen table and listen to the same old stories you’ve been hearing for years, but somehow they get better every time you hear them. I would always sit on the edge of my seat leaning in and listening. That’s why I fell in love with country radio — because it was a story, and I could relate to it.
“Even if they were singing about tequila and cigarettes, I was 5 years old, and I was like, ‘Hell yeah. This is my jam.’”
Right around the middle of the show, she brought her band out to the front of the stage with her for “Things a Man Oughta Know” and “Counting Chickens,” with a fiddle, upright bass, and lap steel guitar to keep her country country. She called it “a little pickin’ and a grinnin’.”
Then Wilson brought Shelby — a little girl from Texas — on to the stage and declared her the Cowgirl of the Night. She christened her by having the little girl repeat Wilson’s mantra: “I am beautiful. I am smart. I am talented. I can do anything, ending with her signature “Peace, love, and cowboys.”
Wilson told the crowd that NFR in Vegas was her favorite time of year. She grew up in the rodeo, as a rodeo flag girl. She and her sister had the honor of being official Rodeo Flag Girls for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. “I’d ride in with the American flag and sing the national anthem on horseback. That was a huge part of my childhood,” she told Cowboys & Indians in her recent cover story. “To this day, my daddy is still president of the rodeo club in Franklin Parish.”
PHOTOGRAPHY (All images): Courtesy Erick Frost.
