Ella Langley has got pranks!
Riley Green’s Damn Country Music Tour, including Langley, featuring Lauren Watkins and Preston Cooper, stopped at FirstBank Amphitheater near Nashville Thursday night. Langley brought more than her sass and hit songs – she also brought stick-on mustaches for the audience.
During her third song, “Nicotine,” Langley leaned down from the stage and passed out something to the first row because she said she “wants to prank the headliner.”
When Green started his set a while later, the camera panned to the first few rows, and many of the fans were wearing the mustaches. He didn’t acknowledge the prank until Langley joined him 14 songs later for “Don’t Mind If I Do.” He told her that she could give all the girls in the crowd a mustache as long as she wore one of them.
“OK,” Langley said. “Maybe I will … in a minute.”
Green introduced the song, saying the romantic title track was one of his favorite songs on the album and one of his favorites to play.
Langley laughed.
“Really,” he replied.
Langley returned to the stage two songs later for their smash “You Look Like You Love Me,” which she co-wrote with Aaron Raitiere and Green. She emerged wearing the leopard print jumpsuit and western belt and buckle that she’d worn all night – with a press-on mustache.
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Ella Langley’s Press-On Mustaches
The spotlight hit her on a platform over the drum riser as she started the song, pressing the stache in place. About halfway through the first verse, Green took her hand to help her down the stairs. She didn’t need it. And after she got down to the stage, he followed, and she put her hand up to stop him from going further. By the time the first chorus started, her mustache was gone. They looked at each other while they sang, flirted with the audience, and Green pretended to flip his hair, spinning in circles like Langley often does during her performances. She pointed at a fan in the crowd, put her finger under her nose, imitating a mustache, and gestured job well done.
The duet was a highlight of the night, and hundreds of fans left after it concluded, even though there were still several songs in the set. It wasn’t an indictment of Green’s show. However, the venue is notoriously difficult to access and exit, and people were trying to avoid the traffic. Thousands of fans remained glued to their spots.
Langley even noted the venue’s traffic in her set. She also said she had always wanted to play at FirstBank Amphitheater, a gorgeous natural amphitheater reminiscent of Red Rocks in Colorado, surrounded by a rock face.
“I’ve always wanted to play here,” Langley told fans, who were tightly packed into the space. “Not always. I didn’t know about this place until six years ago. But for the past six years, I have wanted to play here. I think the first show I saw here was Koe Wetzel. I can’t recall, but I’m playing here tonight myself. That’s pretty damn cool.”
(FirstBank Amphitheater opened in 2021.)
A Mix of Shania Twain and Gretchen Wilson
She thanked fans for showing up early to watch her set, noting that traffic into the venue is – long pause as she chose her word carefully – a pain.
“But you got in here, didn’t ya?” she said. “You might as well have the time of your life while you’re in here because it’s going to be a minute before you get back out if you know what I mean.”
Langley exudes sass and confidence – a fiery mix of Shania Twain and Gretchen Wilson with some Joan Jett sprinkled in. Her guitar players are more White Snake than Willie Nelson, but her voice is unmistakable country gold.
She ripped through 10 songs ahead of Green, including “Weren’t for the Wind,” “Girl You’re Taking Home,” and “That’s Why We Fight.”
“To say my life has been crazy in the last year is an actual understatement,” she told fans. “My head has been (spinning) for 365 days. I’m so grateful to be here and see a crowd full of people singing back the words that I wrote – songs that mean something to me, which is what I moved here for.”
Langley told fans that when she “stopped giving a shit” about what she thought people wanted her to say and started writing about what she wanted to say, is when her career changed.
“When I put out a song that me and Aaron Raitiere wrote in his kitchen over a bowl of spaghetti as a joke, it changed our life,” she said.
Riley Green Meets Fans Where They’re At
Green’s set was 20 songs deep, featuring sing-along favorites largely about girls, trucks, and beer, as well as cover songs and heartbreakers.
People screamed the lyrics to “Different ‘Round Here,” “If It Wasn’t for Trucks,” and “There Was This Girl,” then cried during “Jesus Saves” and “I Wish Grandpas Never Died.”
Green has this uncanny ability to swing between being a master songwriter on jaw-dropping masterpieces like “Jesus Saves,” which he wrote alone, and a baseline farming frat boy on others. While that may sound derogatory, it isn’t. He’s meeting country music fans where they’re at with songs that appeal to every generation and income bracket.
He’s giving the audience – all of the country music audience – something to relate to with no judgment, just tight jeans, a mustache, and a knowing smile. And, that’s how long-lasting careers are built. Critics don’t pay the bills — fans do.
(Photo by Jason Moore/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock)
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