“Are you ready for the country?”
Morgan Wade most certainly is. When Neil Young asked that question on his 1972 album Harvest he may well have been talking about rural life. There again he could have just as easily been referring to country music. As this ever-evolving music genre appears to splinter even further and further away from its ten-gallon hat, Grand Ole Opry, and rhinestone roots, Morgan Wade still stays true to the American songwriter Harlan Howard’s assertion that country music is essentially all about “three chords and the truth.” And this sentiment rings true in many of her songs which are also still immersed in those traditional country staples of love and loss and heartache.
Morgan Wade is back in the United Kingdom for a series of concerts for the first time in almost two years. Last time Wade was here she was accompanied by her regular guitarist Clint Wells. The pair were performing a number of dates on her Crossing State Lines tour which by then had stretched right across the Atlantic Ocean. Taking its name from a track on the 2018 album Puppets With My Heart (credited to Morgan Wade & the Stepbrothers), the tour actually showcased material from Wade’s then forthcoming album Psycopath.
Since that time Morgan Wade hasn’t been hanging around. She duly released Psychopath in August 2023 and then followed that up with her third album, Obsessed which saw the light of day 12 months later. This was the first album in which she had written every single one of the tracks. And Obsessed is the name of this tour which started life last September in Northampton, Massachusetts, and has since zig-zagged right across Wade’s home country either side of New Year before once more crossing the Atlantic for some shows in Europe.
Morgan Wade has again got Clint Wells by her side (he also produced Obsessed) but this time they are joined by the Nashville musician Tyler James on keyboards. At Manchester’s Albert Hall – a Grade II listed Wesleyan chapel dating from the early 20th century – Wade is flanked by both men and together they open this 15-song set with ‘Phantom Feelings’ from Psychopath.
Since seeing her last time round in York, Morgan Wade has certainly developed as a live performer. Whilst many of her songs do detail relationship breakdown and often related personal trauma, she appears to be in a more emotionally robust place, and this strength is reflected in the confidence of her delivery. This is no more true than on new song ‘East Coast’ – her latest single released only ten days ago – which makes an early appearance in the set. Her voice may be hewn from much darkness and despair, yet it speaks with such great resolve for the future.
’East Coast’ is immediately followed by ‘Time to Love, Time to Kill’, the first of four songs that Morgan Wade will play from Obsessed tonight. On one of those songs, ‘Deconstruction’, Tyler James steps back from his keys, picks up his trumpet and blasts out a beautiful mariachi-style solo. However, he does balk at Wade’s suggestion to have “little trumpet boy” tattooed across his chest.
The familiarity of ‘Take Me Away’ from Morgan Wade’s second, and what was her initial major label and ultimately breakout album, 2021’s Reckless sees the first mass show of accompanying torchlights from the sell-out audience’s mobile phones. ‘Crossing State Lines’ with its lines “I’m headed to work hungover. Saying, I ain’t ever drinking again” references her past problems with alcohol and again demonstrates her fierce resolve in that she now hasn’t touched a drop in almost a decade.
Come penultimate song ‘The Night’ the crowd sing-along with every word, something that does not go unnoticed by Morgan Wade who seems genuinely touched that most everyone in the venue knows her songs so well. And it is then left to her best-known song, ‘Wilder Days’ – taken from Reckless, it had ridden high in the American country charts upon its release in 2021 – to close out what is a tremendous show.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Morgan Wade at Albert Hall, Manchester.
