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EDMONTON -- Funny, I thought Kelly Clarkson was a pop singer.
Now there she was sharing the stage with Reba McEntire at Rexall Place last night. There was even a Bounce 91.7 van packed outside the arena at a country concert, right next to the CFCW truck. That was weird.
I admit I haven't been keeping up with the post-American Idol career of Kelly Clarkson as closely as I should've been. Was there a radical change in direction somewhere in there?
But I know that fellow Idol Carrie Underwood hit it huge in country music, that Nashville grooms its biggest stars similarly to American Idol, that stars of neither camp write much of their own material, and that country music in general has a high tolerance for cheese, which the American Idol franchise churns out in giant, stinky wheels.
So it makes perfect sense for Kelly Clarkson, arguably the best of the Idols, to have "gone country."
On the other hand, Kelly's portion of last night's show didn't sound any more "country" than Reba's did. Aside from their inevitable duets, this show was more of a tag-team match featuring the finest two-part female vocals you'll ever hear: Reba doing the backups on Kelly's slick CHR songs, Kelly wailing on Reba's chart-topping country hits.
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This was more than just a Reba concert with an embedded opening act. Think of the "2 Worlds, 2 Voices" tour as a joining of hands across genres and generations, a beautiful symbiosis in more or less perfect harmony, a real smart move on Reba's part in getting this young hotshot to do most of the heavy lifting. Well played!
You could even say that Reba has "gone pop," which seems to be the country music industry's most common complaint about itself. Modern country music all sounds like '80s pop anyway, right? They opened by singing the hell out of the 1983 Eurythmics hit Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). I rest my case.
So why did these two dames pair up in the first place? It's more than just the money. They clearly love being on stage together.
For a quick-paced show spanning the key hits of both singers' careers, there was chemistry on both sides of the blurry country-pop divide.
Early in the show, Kelly got to let loose on Reba's Why Haven't I Heard From You, while Reba was grooving like only a grooving mom can on her stagemate's funky, urbanized Walk Away - the second song a logical next step from the first.
Kelly only looked a little out of place singing in Reba's Western swing material - the only kind of music you want to do in southwestern Oklahoma - but powered out her parts as the stylistic lines got fuzzier.
A large, slick, studio-quality band capable of copping any style helped. One imagines that musicians who played with Patsy Cline wouldn't have been able to pull off something like Miss Independent as it sounds on the record. The attempt might sound interesting, though. I know, I know - don't give them ideas.
But never mind the countrification of pop or the popping up of country, this show could definitely be enjoyed for impressive vocals alone. These ladies killed on the classic The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, and on the ballad Beautiful Disaster, with Reba's eyes on the verge of misting up, as they always are in proximity to the tiniest amount of drama. The hits didn't let up, nor did the hair-raising vocals.
So a country-pop veteran teams up with an R&B pop newcomer to meet somewhere in the middle for a sold-out audience full of hard-core country fans in Edmonton, Alberta - and people are just blown away.
It might be terribly confusing to anyone who wasn't there.
Sun Rating: 4 out of 5