Ashley McBryde (September 22, 2018)

Headliner: Ashley McBryde

Date: September 22, 2018

Venue: The Sheid at Arkansas State University - Mountain Home (Mountain Home, Ark.)

Local girl Ashley McBryde came back to her home state of Arkansas to help do some good on Saturday, Sept. 22 headlining the eighth annual Bridge Bash, put on by the Food Bank of North Central Arkansas to help raise money and package meals for local children in need.

The Bridge Bash, which was located in Cotter, Ark. for its first seven years, moved to the campus of Arkansas State University at Mountain Home in Mountain Home, Ark. for its eighth year in hopes of drawing a larger crowd. The benefit was forced to move indoors on campus to The Shied Auditorium due to rainy weather, but it didn’t stop people from packing the venue to see McBryde, who grew up just about an hour’s drive west of Mountain Home in the small town of Mammoth Spring, Ark. It wasn’t just a local show for McBryde, but also for her drummer Quinn Hill, who hails from Mountain Home. Both McBryde and Hill had multiple family members in the audience for their fantastic performance.

McBryde’s debut album Girl Goin’ Nowhere, which dropped in March of this year, has earned her quite the reputation among fans of traditional sounding country music and has gotten her a lot of critical acclaim. Her set on Saturday at Bridge Bash consisted mostly of tracks from the debut album, with some older tunes thrown in from a previous EP.

One of the most emotional performances of the home stop for McBryde was on one of these tracks from her 2016 EP, Jalopies & Expensive Guitars, called “Bible and a .44,” which she had written about her father. Before the performance she told the story of her dad’s treasured guitar and how she was never supposed to touch it, but one day was gifted it by him. You could tell it was all she could handle not to cry by the song’s end.

The performances off Girl Goin’ Nowhere, of which she wrote or co-wrote all 11 tracks, prove why it’s easily one of the best country music albums of the year. There is upbeat stuff like “Radioland” and “The Jacket,” which leave the audience tapping their feet, and then softer tunes like “Home Sweet Highway” that really hit home life on the road.

McBryde seems to have a great sense of humor based on her show on Saturday and this humor comes out in a song like “Fat and Famous,” in which she recalls high school bullies who never amounted to anything while she’s living the life she dreamed about.

Some of the highlights off Girl Goin’ Nowhere included “Livin’ Next to Leroy,” a song about drug addiction which really hits home in small town America where addiction and overdose have become a major issue, and “El Dorado,” another tune about living life on the road as a traveling musician.

The best performance of McBryde’s set was my favorite track off her album, and one of the best country songs period of 2018, the title track, which gained her notoriety when she performed it earlier this year at the Grand Ole Opry and was recently included on country megastar Garth Brooks’ Triple Live album. It’s a track, which she dedicated to an old algebra teacher, about how people tell you you’re not going to amount to much and then setting out and proving them wrong. Another fantastic performance was “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega,” the first single off her album which was released last year (and made my website’s top 100 Country and Americana Songs of the year list) and topped out at No. 30 on the Billboard charts. It should’ve been a huge hit, but country radio doesn’t play much actual country music and its sexist trends have it playing few female artists, as well.

This leads me to my absolute favorite image of the Bridge Bash show on Saturday afternoon. There were many young children in the audience and most of them young girls, and unlike many young children out somewhere these kids were glued to the front of the stage and entranced by McBryde’s performance. McBryde is a kickass performer, who does things her way and won’t let anybody stand in her way, and that makes her a terrific role model for these young girls in attendance. McBryde will likely be these girl’s hero now and her presence on that stage Saturday showed them they can do whatever they want in this world and no dream is too big.

McBryde’s encore consisted of a great one-two punch of “Southern Babylon,” unique after-life story song, and “American Scandal,” a love song that’s her second single off Girl Goin’ Nowhere and at one point in country history would’ve been a big hit, but because of the idiocy mentioned earlier is barely getting any airplay at all.

McBryde is certainly one of the best new performers within the country music genre and I couldn’t recommend seeing her more when she comes to your neck of the woods. Saturday’s homecoming was an absolute blast and it seemed she was having just as much fun as we were.