(Anna and I have enjoyed taking in concerts when in the USA. The vibe is different and it’s often easier to see American acts that seldom appear in the UK. Ashley McBryde is a Grammy winner and major Country music artist, very much at the top of her game at the moment. We last saw her at Leeds University: this was a very different setting and certainly more of a party.)

McBryde continued her US nationwide tour after taking 30 days off to write and rehearse new songs. Despite this creative pause she said she’d missed being in front of a live audience. The rowdy folk of Helotes, a small suburb of San Antonio, and further afield made it clear they’d also missed her. It’s been an interesting month for her in other ways as her alma mater, Arkansas State University, awarded her an honorary doctorate in music which she collects in May. Dr. McBryde has an impressive ring to it.

Despite the time away to create new music McBryde worked her way through an existing catalogue bar one intriguing Don Henley cover, The Boys of Summer. This song felt so right on a sweltering evening where outdoors we sat in 27° and swigged our cold beer as everyone joined in the chorus. It’s plain to see she is loved: perfectly natural with the audience, comfortable with a band that you’d call her family and beaming throughout often interspersed with deprecating jokes and a genuine appreciation for us all turning out.

She covered songs from all her recent albums including the collaborative Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville. From this album we got the comical Brenda Put Your Bra On and on cue McBryde donned a special Texas flag variant that went down a storm. 

The band is tight and over and above the guitars, drums and bass Wes Dorethy on fiddle and keys added some different colour and texture to the sound. Another stand out was the superb lead guitar of Matt Helmkamp. Inevitably, when individually introduced, the biggest cheer went up for the bassist, Caleb Hooper, a fellow Texan. As you might imagine Texans are proud of their State and its fellow countrymen. Dorethy, with his violin, stepped up to the front of the stage and McBryde introduced her latest hit, Ain’t Enough Cowboy Songs, by saying that she’d thought it was too country for radio (!) and nearly didn’t bother to release it as a single but lo and behold it had surprised and delighted her and her record label with massive streaming figures. Maybe this country music has a future? 

There were the usual up tempo songs such as Rattlesnake Preacher, The Devil I Know, El Dorado, First Thing I Reach For and Whiskey and Country Music with some sonorous B3 organ. However, when the band took a brief break she played Girl Goin’ Nowhere: a true epiphany. When she got to the lyric “I hear the crowd / I look around / And I can’t find one empty chair” the crowd exploded. Pure magic. The slower songs seemed intimate and sentimental in this setting especially A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega, Light On In The Kitchen and Sparrow. This gem is a long glance homewards with affection and gratitude to her parents and where her roots are firmly planted.

After 90 minutes the set was completed with Tired of Being Happy. You couldn’t disagree with her assessment of “where would country music be without a cheating song?” The open air venue was in a residential area and a 10.30pm finish may have been mandated and so no encore. It was a memorable and special experience and we trooped out past the $40 tour T shirts to Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman. From here we girded our loins to face the hectic San Antonio traffic back into the city.