Review: Megan Moroney’s sold-out Charlotte show comes on heels of a heckuva week

After the week Megan Moroney’s had, the fact that resale tickets to her sold-out Charlotte show were going for north of $400 apiece in the hours beforehand was probably no big deal to her.

The buzz around the 27-year-old country singer, indeed, has been building for a while. She’s been having one long moment since breaking out with her debut single “Tennessee Orange” coming up on three years ago now. But lately, she’s been having A MOMENT in all-caps.

I mean, how’s this for a week?

Last Sunday, Moroney won the MTV VMAs Best Country award, beating out genre heavyweights like Jelly Roll, Morgan Wallen and Lainey Wilson for the first-of-its-kind honor. Less than 24 hours later, Moroney scored six CMA Awards nominations — tied for the most of any artist — including for female vocalist of the year and album of the year. Then on Thursday, she popped up at pop star Tate McRae’s show for a duet of “6 Months Later” in Nashville; the very next night, Kenny Chesney (whom she opened for at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium last year) popped up at Moroney’s Charleston show for a duet of “You Had to Be There.”

The show here in Charlotte on Saturday night, meanwhile, had no surprise celebrity guests. There were no mentions of her impressive accolades. She didn’t break down and cry, like she’d done the night before in Charleston, while singing one of her newest songs.

She did open her set just over an hour after her alma mater the University of Georgia edged Tennessee in OT, prompting a “Go Dawgs!” shoutout from her early on; but it was otherwise a rather typical Megan Moroney concert. Which is to say:

• As has been the case since shows last summer, there was a sea of royal-blue-clad teenage girls and early-twentysomething women, so dressed in the shade as a nod to it being the official hue of her “Am I Okay?” album.

• As has become the norm at Moroney shows, the crowd — of 7,000 strong in this case — sang along loudly, passionately and tirelessly. (I was, by this, about equally awestruck and exasperated, the latter mainly whenever the well-meaning but tone-deaf girl directly behind me got particularly worked up).

• And as has been the case throughout this current tour, the singer with just two albums so far to her name filled the bulk of her 105-minute set with what under normal circumstances be a bunch of B-sides ... yet they all mostly felt like radio-friendly singles, if for no other reason than nearly every last one seemed to inspire a “Sweet Caroline”-at Fenway-Park-level singalong. (So even “Sleep On My Side,” a song that wasn’t a radio hit, becomes a certified banger in a live setting, with Moroney calling “I sleep on my side,” everyone waiting a beat, then the crowd responding at full volume, “AND YOU SLEEP WITH EVERYONE!”)

This is all pretty remarkable, considering that not even two years ago she was headlining Coyote Joe’s.

Even so, she seems a natural fit for an arena stage — backed by giant LED screens, perching herself on heart-shaped setpieces, pulling off multiple costume changes (although mostly based on a dazzling baby-blue minidress and white knee-high cowboy boots), playing half a dozen different guitars.

Moroney looked at ease whether she was tossing back a shot of liquor; tossing a drumstick she’d just beaten a crash cymbal with into the first few rows; tossing what looked like a very expensive acoustic guitar six feet high and six feet across to a fortunately-not-butter-fingered stagehand; or tossing each side of her blond hair with each hand as she danced to the instrumental break in “Lucky.”

She also tossed off more than her fair share of messages geared toward empowering her core fans mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

In calling “Girl in the Mirror” “one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written,” she said: “I wrote it as a reminder to never love the boy more than I love me. ... I knew that if I really loved myself, it wouldn’t be staying with him. It would be walking away. ... If this is something that you’re going through ... don’t worry, I’ve been there. But it does get better. You just have to choose yourself. And there’s so many other fish in the sea.”

In winding the show to a close, Moroney said: “At all my shows ... I like to encourage ... any big dreamers that might think that the thing that they really want to do is so far away and so unattainable that you don’t even try. This is me encouraging you to try, because I was the same way. I went to college to be an accountant because (although) I love to play guitar ... I was scared to dream big. So I just want to encourage you guys ... whether you want to be a doctor or start a business or whatever it is, just go for it.”

Perhaps the thing she said that resonated with me the most, though — and I imagine I’m not alone in this, after the week we’ve had — was the comment she made about her newest song, “Beautiful Things.”

“I think this,” Moroney said of the song she dedicated to her niece through tears in Charleston, “is just a good reminder that everybody’s going through something. So just be nice.

“Just be nice to each other.”

And with that, I take back what I said earlier about the girl behind me.

She actually sang beautifully.

Megan Moroney’s setlist

1. “Man on the Moon”

2. “Indifferent”

3. “I Know You”

4. “Noah”

5. “Third Time’s a Charm”

6. “No Caller ID”

7. “I’m Not Pretty”

8. “Hair Salon”

9. “Girl in the Mirror”

10. “Sleep on My Side”

11. “Lucky”

12. “Hell of a Show” / “28th of June” / “Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You”

13. “Hope You’re Happy”

14. “Mama I Lied”

15. “Miss Universe”

16. “Break It Right Back”

17. “Bless Your Heart”

18. “Beautiful Things”

19. ‘Wonder”

20. “6 Months Later”

21. “The Girls”

22. “Tennessee Orange”

23. “I’ll Be Fine”

Encore:

24. “Am I Okay?”