This past weekend, some of the biggest names in music were all performing throughout Los Angeles. Miley Cyrus, who’s now performing under the single moniker MILEY, debuted her highly-anticipated show at The Hollywood Bowl on Friday night with a second show on Sunday. Charli xcx brought the music, fashion, film tour to The Kia Forum on Saturday and Sunday night with a jam-packed list of special guests. But the busy days of live music didn’t deter any fans from swapping their dancing shoes for some cowboy boots to hit the Crypto Arena for Kacey Musgraves‘ two back-to-back shows on Sunday and Monday evening for The Middle of Nowhere tour, which supports her sixth studio album of the same name.
Musgraves is certainly no arena tour amateur: she just completed 49 dates across North America and Europe back in 2024 in support of Deeper Well, and before that, her first arena tour kicked off during the star-crossed era. That was also the last time I had the chance to see her live, which also happened to be at The Crypto Arena back in February 2022.
From seeing a few clips of the show on social media, it was evident that The Middle of Nowhere tour had a much larger budget for stage theatrics compared to the tours of Musgraves’ past. The stage set-up itself has followed suit of many other artists on performing to large crowds, opting for a center stage in the middle of the arena floor for a true in-the-round experience. Yet this show included an element that I had never seen at a concert: the 360-degree rotating stage featured a walking-pad-esque track around the perimeter that can best be described as an infinite version of people movers you see at the airport. It gave Musgraves a unique ability to navigate the stage in a more seamless and natural way. There was also pyrotechnics, a mechanical butterfly speeding around on an invisible track, and a stellar lighting design that made the evening feel intimate and cozy.
At 9:10 PM sharp, Musgraves appeared at the north end floor in an abandoned house set that reminded me of Slayyyter’s stage design on the WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA tour, a comparison of two artists I never thought I’d make, but loved discovering the likeness between both. Donning a sparkly top and short set, a simple black cowboy hat, and her Louboutin cowboy boots, Musggraves opened the night with “Everyone Wants to Be a Cowboy,” the first offering of the night from Middle of Nowhere. The song set the scene for the rest of the evening to unfold akin to a box taking the ring for their first match. Musgraves made her way to the center stage for a performance of “Dry Spell,” Middle of Nowhere‘s lead single—not quite my favorite song, but certainly packs enough of a punch to be, what felt to me, the real opening note of the evening.
Musgraves then transitioned into a more subdued rendition of the song “justified” off star-crossed—also one of my favorites off of that project. I would have really loved to hear more from that album—the only other song featured was “hookup scene,”—but obviously there are limitations to what an artist can play in one evening when they have six albums to choose from.
Songs from Middle of Nowhere were the main focus of the evening—Musgraves chose to perform 14 of the 15 tracks—but she didn’t forget to sprinkle in some of her biggest songs throughout the 24-song long set, including “High Horse,” “Butterflies,” “Golden Hour,” “Slow Burn,” and “Space Cowboy” from her Grammy-award winning album Golden Hour.
My favorites off the new album, “I Believe in Ghosts” and “Mexico Honey” both had special moments onstage: the former featuring a murky effect on the screen to mimic Musgraves’ face as a ghostly figure, moving slowly and hauntingly, and “Mexico Honey,” which featured clips of the music video as a backdrop to the performance for what was in my opinion, the horniest moment of the show (yes, even more so than the disco ballsack swing Musgraves sits in during “rhinestoned”).
She also took the time to shout out the origins of country music and its versatility, represented in a cover of the 1990s hit “(Hey Baby) ¿Qué pasó?” by American Tejano supergroup Texas Tornadoes, and shouting out her Latinx fanbase for always having her back.
I’ll admit that I’ve never had a simple relationship with country music as a genre. But that’s part of why I’ve always admired Kacey Musgraves: she’s never pretended it’s simple for her either. Whether she’s celebrating the genre’s roots, as she did with the Texas Tornadoes cover on Sunday, performing “Merry Go ‘Round,” which, in Musgraves’ words, was “the first thing I got to say to the world” back in 2013, or always sticking true to her political beliefs in a space where they tend to be alienating, she makes that tension part of the music rather than hiding it.
The first song of hers I ever heard was “Follow Your Arrow,” which sent me straight down the rabbit hole of her music. I specifically fell in love with the 2015 album Pageant Material, and honestly, I haven’t climbed out since. Nearly a decade later, I love all of her music, from the twangy to the cosmic to the heartbreak-in-a-disco-ball era. Her artistry is always evolving, and in the grand scheme of things, that’s what makes her so relatable: we’re all just trying to figure out who we are, one era at a time.
Kacey Musgraves’ North American tour dates conclude this week with two shows in Seattle on Oct. 26 and 27 before she heads to the UK in February 2027 for three more dates.
Photos by Ariel Goldberg for Crypto.com Arena
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