The Pinnacle, a pristine new 4,500-capacity venue in Nashville, made sure its opening night on Thursday was special, with an intimate concert from Kacey Musgraves. And Musgraves herself made sure the evening was memorable by bringing her full arena stage set, and even premiered a new song called “She’s My Bitch” — but before the scandal-mongers get started, it’s an ode to her dog, Pepper.
“She’s black and white, all ride or die
More bark than bite
She’s my bitch,” the song begins.
“The star of the pack, no one’s talking smack
Yeah, she’s got my back
She’s my bitch.”
Musgraves performed the song solo, and if the object of the song’s lyrics weren’t already clear, the dog got a name-check in the middle: “So spicy, her name is Pepper.” The audience chanted “Pepper!” as it drew to a close.
“Who would’ve known when I took her home
That I’d fall so in love
Yeah, I’m her bitch.”
The remainder of the show mostly followed Musgraves’ recent tour setlist, (she’d played Nashville’s 20,000-capacity Bridgestone Arena just two months ago), with several songs from her latest album “Deeper Well” — including, of course, the existential “The Architect,” which won a Grammy for best country song earlier this month — and a mixture of hits and deeper cuts from her previous outings. The show was obviously special to her as well, as she bantered with the audience between nearly every song and said that Nashville feels like home, recalling that she’d moved to the city when she was just 19.
She also joked often about her stage set, which was loaded with ferns, moss and sod and basically resembled a giant terrarium — at one point she even reached for a hairbrush hidden somewhere in the ferns at the front of the stage and had to grope around to find it.