Maren Morris' endurance and excellence highlighted at Bridgestone Arena

2023 will mark a decade since Maren Morris moved to Nashville at the urging of her fellow country music-playing Texan, Kacey Musgraves. Had COVID-19 not struck the globe, she would've -- as passionate and highly-driven overachievers do -- achieved country superstardom in a ten-year-town in only seven years. Her single, "The Bones," was a No. 1 Country Sales chart hit for 127 consecutive days. Thus, Morris' maiden headlining performance at Bridgestone Arena on Friday night was just that -- a coronation of her achievement of pop-crossover superstardom in the genre -- almost three years too late.

Intriguingly, the evening was marked -- sometimes on purpose, other times in notable convergence -- by moments highlighting the idea that Morris' stardom falls in line with an over half-century-long list of power-pop divas whose interests dovetailed into a particular, countrified brand of rock and roll -- but were never wholly defined by a genre whose mother church is located less than a mile away from Bridgestone Arena.

Before Morris took the stage, Lesley Gore's 1963 classic "You Don't Own Me" was played. Notably, too, the evening's appearance of The Highwomen -- the progressive-minded female country supergroup of which Morris is a member -- featured pop-rock legend Sheryl Crow (alongside opener Brittney Spencer, alongside Morris and "regular" members Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires).

Spencer closed out a year that's seen her play gigs for most of the year, opening for both Morris and musical icon Willie Nelson, by performing her scintillating cover of The Chicks' 1999 classic "Cowboy Take Me Away." Moreover, Ruston Kelly, who took the stage just before Morris' set, glided into a heavy take on Taylor Swift's award-winning ballad "All Too Well."

Most profound to her performance at Bridgestone in 2022 is that it comes amid the release of her most frankly mature album, "Humble Quest."

Instead of belting out her problems with the veneer of power-pop playing and songwriting aided by the kind of upper-octave rock radio-ready power ballad shouting that defined success for artists like Pat Benatar and Bonnie Tyler, this is a more focused, measured project.

Also, it comes at a time when her dustup over her vocal support of rights for members of the LGBTQ spectrum led Fox News host Tucker Carlson -- while speaking to vocal Morris antagonizer (and Jason Aldean's wife) Brittany Aldean -- to refer to Morris as a "Lunatic Country Music Person."

"I've learned when and when not to shut the f**k up," Morris noted before launching into a performance of the album's title single at the halfway point of her set. She received an extended ovation from the crowd -- gay, straight and transgender, many wearing the t-shirt related to Carlson's statement that has led to proceeds totaling over $100,000 split between GLAAD's Transgender Media Program and Trans Lifeline.

"This is a place of love. And I don't need to say anything else."

Key to the evening also was Morris still being overwhelmed to tears by the 2019 passing of her beloved collaborator, songwriter Michael Busbee. Every performance she did of material bearing his handiwork -- her debut record's massive hits "80s Mercedes" and "My Church" (the latter was met with the evening's wildest applause, a roaring singalong and served as the night's closer) and album track "Once," plus a song tribute to him -- "Humble Quest" album closer "What Would This World Do Without You" -- was played in a stripped down version as the night's encore with her husband, Ryan Hurd, on piano.

Morris questioned her decision to honor Busbee by playing the latter song to close the concert. She openly asked, "Is it ok to look back?" But, surmising that "inspirations can be internalized," she soldiered on.

There's a very undaunted durability in Morris' demeanor and voice that dominated the evening. She has measured control of her multi-octave instrument. The multiple award-winner's fanbase is comprised of people who needed that type of direct leadership to navigate their way through country music. They find it in Morris because she's -- like them -- a progressive-minded, admitted "musical theater nerd" who implores people to do better by willfully assuming the role that she told the Los Angeles Times was "the hall monitor of treating people like human beings in country music."

For those feeling unseen by Miranda Lambert's "Gunpowder and Lead" or Carrie Underwood's "Denim and Rhinestones," Morris is a 5'1" spitfire who assumes the role of mother to a two-and-a-half-year-old and wife to a man 14 inches taller than her (yes, she made a prolonged note of this before playing 2022's "Tall Guys"). Then, she straps on a guitar, belts power ballads like "The Middle" and concert highlight "The Bones" (alongside special guest Hozier -- another very tall man).

Her demeanor is so resolute that songs like her lead single of 2022, "Circles Around This Town" and "Chasing After You," her No. 1 duet with her husband, are delivered so boldly and matter-of-factly that the nuances in the songwriting are overpowered more by who is singing them and less enhanced by the power that describing redefining yourself via love and relationships or having what Morris called the patience to "just wait" for success because it "makes the fruit that much sweeter" can offer to a track.

The 21-song performance's most defining moment occurred when, after calling herself a musical theater nerd, she called out native Oklahoman, current Nashville resident and often New York City Broadway-based star of "Wicked," Kristin Chenoweth.

Considering Morris' fans are potentially the type of people who feel an awkward but respectful kinship to Underwood, seeing Chenoweth as "their" Oklahoman based in Nashville was important. Even deeper, given that Morris has tried out for the cast of "Wicked," her filling the shoes of Idina Menzel for a performance of "For Good" perhaps offered a preview of more work between the twosome in the future.

In just under a decade, Morris has evolved as a Nashville artist playing songwriting rounds at the Belcourt Taps to breaking out at the Basement East and Ryman Auditorium. Then, just before COVID, as many in Music City do, she graduated to headlining at the Ascend Amphitheater. Now, she's played at Bridgestone Arena.

She's done this by working tirelessly worldwide through heartbreak, heartache, love, loss, marriage, missteps, post-partum depression and literally being called a lunatic at the end of conquering so much without making enough time for herself.

As bittersweet as she is bold, Morris' endurance and excellence were appreciated and celebrated at Bridgestone Arena. In a manner not unlike those who will come before and after her, unlike Biblical scripture, it's as much about being quick-minded and strong as it is about consistently capitalizing on chances at the right times that define her overall success.

"I'm gonna write more songs so we can do this again," Morris stated as she left the stage.

She's not ready to stop boldly pushing forward, either.

Maren Morris at Bridgestone Arena -- 12/2/2022 -- SETLIST

• The Furthest Thing

• Circles Around This Town

• I Can't Love You Anymore (with Ryan Hurd)

• 80s Mercedes

• I Wish I Was

• Girl

• The Middle

• Chasing After You (with Ryan Hurd)

• Humble Quest

• Background Music

• Redesigning Women (with Sheryl Crow, Natalie Hemby, Amanda Shires, Brittney Spencer)

• Crowded Table (with Sheryl Crow, Natalie Hemby, Amanda Shires, Brittney Spencer)

• I Could Use A Love Song

• Tall Guys

• Once

• Rich

• For Good

• Good Friends

• The Bones (with Hozier)

• My Church

• What Would This World Do Without You (encore, with Ryan Hurd)

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Maren Morris' endurance and excellence highlighted at Bridgestone Arena