Kelsea Ballerini powers through flu for first Ryman headlining show

Kelsea Ballerini won't quickly forget Valentine's Day of 2018 – it was her first Valentine's Day as a wife and her first headlining show at Ryman Auditorium. It was sold out, and she had the flu.

Ballerini canceled her preshow meet and greet due to her illness. But when it came time to go on stage, Ballerini made herself take the steps. Fittingly, she played her sophomore album “Unapologetically” top to bottom as well as her biggest hits. 

“I could not cancel this show because this is the show we built the tour around," Ballerini said. "This record is a story; it's the story of my emotional journey the last three years. And it starts with a break-up."

The singer, who moved to Nashville with her mother at 15, used video content on her heart-shaped video screen to tell the story between segments in her show while she rushed backstage to change clothes.

Until Ballerini said something, there was no indication the blonde dynamo was sick. She launched the show with a high energy “Graveyard,” “Miss Me More,” “Get Over Yourself” and “Roses.”  Each song was an album cut, but audiences sang the words as surely as if each song were a hit.

Ballerini said the musical content evolves from heartbroken to healing to falling in love. The singer’s sound rests on the contemporary fringes of country music with many of her new songs pushing the boundary even further. But “I Hate Love Songs,” which she had originally left off the album,” has stronger country undertones. Ballerini hinted that it might be her next single.

She surprised fans by bringing out her new husband, Australian country singer Morgan Evans. Evans strolled onto the beloved stage carrying an over-sized vase of roses in honor of the holiday. Ballerini shrieked that she thought he had forgotten Valentine's Day.

Ballerini explained the couple had been to each other's shows multiple times, but they had never performed together. That changed Wednesday night when Ballerini sweetly joined Evans on a song he wrote for her about six weeks after they met.

"I was at home on the couch, and she was on one of the morning shows, and I was waiting for her to come on," Evans said. "They were talking about some gossip thing, and I wasn't into it. I muted the TV and picked up a guitar."

Evans said he started playing, got a spark of inspiration and a verse and chorus came out in 20 minutes. Entitled "Dance with Me," Evans said he recorded the song, and there was only one way to make it better. His wife had to sing on it with him.

“Don’t cry,” Ballerini told her husband as he started to play the love song.

The next video break explained people find love when they’re not looking. The last three songs in the set chronicle her love story with Evans. Title song “Unapologetically,” “Music,” and her current No. 2  hit “Legends” closed out the set. Ballerini asked fans to stand for the song.

“I don’t even know what to say, but thank you,” she said.

Ballerini encored with her biggest hits including “Peter Pan,” “Dibs” and “Yeah Boy” then sent her band off the stage so she could end her show just as she started her career, with nothing but her songs and her fans.  She asked for the house lights to be raised and then said she was going to step away from the microphone to sing.

“It’s Mother Church time, y’all,” she said, referring to Ryman Auditorium’s nickname.

Ballerini sang the first note of “Love Me Like You Mean It” into the microphone and let fans sing the rest.

“My name is Kelsea Ballerini,” she said, ending the show. “Thank you so much, Nashville. You change my life every day.”