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Concert review: Carrie Underwood dazzles Covelli Centre
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
YOUNGSTOWN
Carrie Underwood’s concert at Covelli Centre on Thursday could have been a preview of the next Super Bowl halftime show.
But they’d have to tone it down a little.
The country-pop superstar’s Storyteller Tour brought all the spectacle for which Underwood fans have come to expect.
It started with a stage that ran the length of the floor with multiple pods, offshoots, lasers and lifts through which Underwood would disappear and re-emerge. It was a geometric mix of parallel lines and circles. From the air, it might have looked like a crop circle, or maybe the Nazca Lines of Peru, but outlined with neon. If the roof came off the building, it might have attracted extraterrestrials.
There was also a contraption of concentric digital-screen rings hanging from center stage, that telescoped and retracted. Four overhead oval-shaped screens that resembled family heirloom frames showed close-ups all around.
The whole thing was designed to make the largest of arenas seem smaller.
It seemed almost too big for the one-level Covelli Centre. Almost. In fact, the show was easily the most intimate major concert I’ve ever seen. No matter where you were sitting, sooner or later, Carrie was right in front of you.
She noticed too. “I like this venue,” she said. “I can see every one of your faces.”
The Oklahoma native commanded her stage like she was the captain, strutting in stilettos and belting out powerful vocals.
Underwood is in her prime, and her voice was so consistently strong all night.
Wearing ripped leather pants and high heels, she opened her two-hour show with the rocking “Renegade Runaway” from the current album, and later marched through “Good Girl.”
Costume changes are a part of the package, and Underwood emerged for the second act wearing a rhinestone trimmed dress atop a massive jukebox that was spewing pyro. Yes, it was awesome.
But she slowed things down for a spell with the beautiful “Heartbeat,” then displayed some soulful wailing in “Jesus Take the Wheel” before belting out “Wasted.”
In outfit No. 3 — a red harem girl get-up — Underwood again showed some big pipes in “Blown Away.”
She shifted into a lighter tone with a couple of sassy cuts from “Storyteller,” included “Dirty Laundry” and a swampy-sultry take of “Choctaw County Affair” — which she started with an impressively bluesy harmonica intro. Who knew?
Underwood’s voice burned and fluttered on “I Will Always Love You,” which she sang as a tribute to Dolly Parton, one of her biggest inspirations and an original storyteller.
Opening acts Easton Corbin and the Swon Brothers came out for “Fishing in the Dark,” a feel-good, slow-burn twanger.
The show wound down with an effortless take on pop gem “All-American Girl,” and the revenge song “Before He Cheats,” before an encore of “Smoke Break,” with Underwood wielding an acoustic guitar, and a beautiful “Something in the Water.”