On Tuesday, October 29, I took a train to New York City to see my favorite country artist Kelsea Ballerini perform a one-night-only show at Madison Square Garden. This show came only four days after her most recent album release, “Patterns.” This album celebrates Ballerini’s growth and acknowledges that everyone has patterns both good and bad.
This show had two openers, Tigirlily Gold and Aly & AJ. Both opening sets were great and got the crowd excited for Kelsea but not before encouraging people to vote. Aly & AJ have become very open about their mass shooting experience and discussed it before singing their single, “Sirens.”
Ballerini took the stage around 9:30 PM to sing all of her new album. Despite the release date having been so close to the show, the crowd knew all the words and sang along the whole night. She began her set with the title track “Patterns,” while sitting on a pile of suitcases similar to the one on the album cover. Between songs, as the suitcases were being taken off the stage, Ballerini joked about how everyone has baggage but hers needs a forklift. She played her entire album for a crowd of screaming fans that echoed every word. During her song “WAIT!,” beautiful balls of light dropped from the ceiling and slowly moved into different patterns above her. They continued throughout various songs as well. Ballerini discussed some of the songs she played, one of them being “I would, would you?” She gave shout outs to the people she worked on the album with and talked about friendship before mashing up the song with “Lean on me.” Ballerini gave an incredible performance of the Patterns album before transitioning into her hits from the past ten years of her career.
She sang songs I remember listening to with my family in the car all the way through her EP, “Rolling Up The Welcome Mat.” Ballerini even brought dancers from Flaming Saddles on stage to line dance during her song “Hole in the Bottle.” It was very unexpected by the crowd, but based on the screams it was a well-loved surprise.
The most special part of the night was when she sang “Penthouse,” my favorite song, and one that caused some tears. “Penthouse” is a song Ballerini wrote after her divorce to Morgan Evans in 2022. She is currently in a relationship with actor Chase Stokes and performs the healed version of “Penthouse” live. She gave a brief speech before beginning to play about how the song is now played for the fans, but this time unbeknownst to Ballerini, the fans sang for her. The performance was going as planned until the lines “I bought the house with a fence, enough room for some kids, a backyard for Dibs” where the crowd screamed that last line. Ballerini’s dog, Dibs, has recently been diagnosed with inoperable cancer and she has been updating fans regularly on social media. The crowd screaming the line about Dibs made her start to cry and the crowd had to take over the chorus. It was a beautiful and very emotional moment that fans were happy to provide for Ballerini. She continued with more hits from her career before ending her show with a song that can only be heard on her limited-edition downloadable version of “Patterns.” She said she promised herself at the beginning of her career that she would always play a song just her and her guitar during her shows. The song is titled “To the men that love women after heartbreak,” and Ballerini joked about how she didn’t include it on the album when fans didn’t know any of the words. It was a great way to end the show and her ability to make jokes helped lighten the mood after the emotional moment during “Penthouse.”
Overall, I think Kelsea Ballerini put on the best live show I have ever seen, and her fans clearly adore her. I thought her performance was incredible and I am so happy to have been there.
