Review | Kacey Musgraves Stays True to Herself

Rainbows, Pink Ponies, and Champagne Cakes Flavor a Fun Evening at the Santa Barbara Bowl

Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry

She’s a little bit country, a little bit pop, and a little bit Cher — the 1970s Sonny & Cher Show version — with an eclectic set list, a gorgeous head of hair, a good sense of humor, and not a lot of dance moves. I didn’t go into last week’s Kacey Musgraves show at the Santa Barbara Bowl with a lot of preconceptions about the country/pop star, but left feeling pleasantly entertained and more than a little amused by this unique artist.

The evening — which sadly had no warm-up band, although Father John Misty and Nickel Creek both joined Musgraves for the Deeper Well World Tour before and after the Santa Barbara September 25 show — began theatrically, with green smoke, starry lights, and a silhouetted Vargas Girlish figure falling from the sky before that image was seemingly transformed into Musgraves, who walked on stage with her guitar singing “Cardinal” from her 2024 album Deeper Well.

Random audience members had been handed bracelets that lit up in pretty synchronicity with the lights and added further to the drama of this big stadium style show. The butterfly graphics that accompanied the 2018 song “Butterflies” were downright Disney princess worthy, especially as she sang the lyrics, “Now, you’re lifting me up ‘stead of holding me down / Stealing my heart ‘stead of stealing my crown.”

“Oh my goodness, Santa Barbara. I am loving it. The vibes are strong tonight,” said Musgraves, noting that it was her first visit to our town. She gestured to the back of the Bowl, saying, “That’s where the weird but fun stuff goes on — all the way on that mountain up there.” Then she directed the audience to sway to another new song, titled “Sway,” with the chorus, “Maybe one day / I’ll learn how to sway / Like a palm tree in the wind / I won’t break; I’ll just bend.”

Opening image for Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry

Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry

Also from the new album, “Too Good to Be True” was up next, which she said was written from “the perspective of how hard it is after you’ve been hurt.” That was followed by “Golden Hour,” from the 2018 album by the same name, featuring some great closeups of the band members’ hands playing pedal steel and keyboards on a giant screen above the top of the stage (a cool stage addition I have not seen at the Bowl before).

“Lonely Millionaire,” another new song, was followed by her 2013 breakout hit “Follow Your Arrow,” probably my favorite tune of the night. It’s a just-be-yourself anthem with hard-to-resist, sassy lyrics like, “If you don’t go to church, you’ll go to Hell / If you’re the first one on the front row, you’re self-righteous son of a— / Can’t win for losin’, you’ll just disappoint ’em / Just ’cause you can’t beat ’em, don’t mean you should join ’em.”

That just-be-yourself vibe persisted throughout the night, as Musgraves extolled the virtues of her favorite pink champagne cake from the Madonna Inn in “Dinner with Friends,” and did a campy cover of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” (more pink) followed by a launch of confetti cannons, which she assured us were all biodegradable.

In a fitting close to a night which she said she wanted “to end on a really beautiful, positive note, we have a lot more in common that I sometimes think we do,” Musgraves introduced “Rainbow,” with a plea for unity instead of divisiveness. With a lit-up rainbow floating over her on stage, she sang, “Yeah, there’s always been a rainbow hanging over your head … / It’ll all be all right” — an excellent notion to send us out after a fun evening in her company.

Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves and her band at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry
Kacey Musgraves at the Santa Barbara Bowl, September 25, 2024 | Photo: Carl Perry