AS long as Trisha Yearwood sings songs like A Lover Is Forever she won't be short of admirers. But unfortunately, the naked passion of that song is an exception in what has become a lacklustre parade of half tit torch ballads and anodyne radio friendly countrypop. A few years back this Nashville singer promised much, but, along with what seems like a generation of establishment country performers, she has been blinded by the glare of the traffic stuck firmly in the middle of the road.
Last Wednesday night, before an enthusiastic if under capacity audience, the big voiced Yearwood and her competent five piece band delivered an inevitably competent set. The songs were plucked from her back catalogue and her most recent album, Everybody Knows. She is an engaging performer, friendly, open, with a fine sense of theatre in her powerful vocals. Predictable ballads like Down On My Knees or The Song Remembers When were set against the midpaced pop of the likes of Walkaway Joe to good effect.
But it all had a strong sense of going through the motions. Even their "unplugged" section lacked the kind of sparkle one would expect from such a talented group of musicians. There were no risks, nothing to stretch the imagination. Trisha Yearwood is not a poor artist per se, but her work is symptomatic of the malaise that is dragging mainstream country music further and further into numbing mediocrity.