Maren Morris & RaeLynn GIRL Tour 2019 in Amsterdam (22nd May 2019)

While country music feels to have a first boom in Germany, the Netherlands are slightly ahead and have a quite solid fan-base in that genre already. Thus, it was more surprising that Maren Morris’ GIRL World Tour hit my home country rather than our European neighbor. As I was in London on the day Maren played in Cologne, I decided to visit her Amsterdam stage. At the Paradiso, she was supported by the Texas country singer RaeLynn. Here is a review of the concert held on 22nd May 2019.

There is a designated gallery with 157 major size pictures for this posting. All the pictures have been taken with a compact digital camera, so that they do not reach typical Flyctory.com quality standards.

GIRL World Tour 2019 – The Venue

The Paradiso is a former church on the Southern part of central Amsterdam. It can easily be reached by a walk or by the tram from Central Station. It took me some 25 minute to walk from ibis Hotel Amsterdam Centre right at that place. The main venue holds 1,500 spectators. It also features a nice bar area in the basement and a smaller venue for some 250 people on the upper level. The stage in the main arena is comparably high (likely about 1.5 metres).

Regular tickets for the concert were 20 Euro. I had a Meet & Greet VIP, which increased the price by 150 Euro. Apart from the Meet & Greet with picture taking, you were given a signed poster for that price.

GIRL World Tour 2019 – The Artists

Maren Morris is a 1990 born country singer from Arlington, Texas. While she is in the music industry since she is 15 years old, her breakthrough was in 2016, when she published the album Hero and especially the single My Church, which was Top 10 in the US and Canadian country charts. I love that album, while my review of her second album, GIRL, which was featured at this tour, was rather mixed. There is also some bio in that postion. Her biggest success in Europe, though, was a dance song. Together with the German-Russian DJ Zedd and US Duo Grey, she published The Middle in early 2018, which was #49 in the annual charts in Germany of that year and barely missed the Top 10. Apart from USA and Canada, it received Gold or Silver status in Australia, Belgium, Brasil, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand and Sweden.

While it was the first time I saw Maren Morris live on stage, I saw two performances of RaeLynn at the Country 2 Country 2019 in London. I selected her song Tailgate as one of my favorite ones of this three-day festival. RaeLynn describes herself as a proud small town girl from Baytown, Texas. She made it to the quarterfinals of the 2012 edition of The Voice. Two years later, God made Girls was her first Top 10 entry to the US Country Singles Charts. Her 2017 debut album WildHorses topped the Billboard Country album charts. RaeLynn has a very characteristic voice and straight lyrics.

Meet & Greet with Maren Morris

While the doors for the show opened at 19:00 hrs, the VIP tickets were allowed to enter the venue at 18:00 already. The group was 13 people. Maren came for a 15 minute open Q&A session and was very open-minded to answer questions about her songs, but also about her dog. Thereafter, the crew took pictures of the people and her, who also signed tour posters and other items for the participants. Overall, a very nice and sympathetic event compared to other Meet & Greets I had. However, it is also quite a financial upgrade as well – the only VIP upgrade I still feel is really worth it is Weird Al Yankovic (trip report of my 2018 tour stages).

GIRL World Tour 2019 – The Show

RaeLynn opened the stage at 19:30 for a 30 minute show. After a some 30 minute intermission, Maren Morris roughly played until 22:00. The lower floor of the venue was quite packed during the concerts.

RaeLynn

RaeLynn opened the show with God made Girls and overall played eight songs, published material as well as new stuff. There was thoughtful stuff like Love Triangle, which is about the divorce of her parents, as well funny stuff like Tailgate about the stories her pick-up truck could tell. It was a very nice show, where RaeLynn came very often close to the people – something I did not see from her in London.

Maren Morris

GIRL, The Feels and 80s Mercedes were the opening songs of Maren Morris performance. There was a huge variety in her songs. For All My Favorite People, RaeLynn came back on stage and performed this song as a duet with Morris. Towards the end of the show, there were the most rocking and powerful songs, including Rich, Once and My Church. The encore was Shade and The Middle, for which soap bubbles were blown into the audience.

GIRL World Tour 2019 – My View

This show definitely gave me more sympathy with Maren Morris again. I loved Hero, I struggled with GIRL, but in the Q&A and on stage, she showed nice touch for people. The atmosphere was amazing. At My Church, I could not spot a single person not singing along. A really nice concert – even a great one at the beginning and at the end – the middle part was a bit more defensive and less convincing. But it is definitely worth to watch this girl on stage.

RaeLynn is an artist you either love or just don’t like. She is very characteristic in what she does and I just love it. Her set in Amsterdam was softer than in London, I prefer the full Texan powerhouse on stage – but I look forward to see her again at the CMA Fest in Nashville. The highlight of the shows definitely was the girls’ duet of All my favorite people, which just fired the good old Paradiso church.