Miranda Lambert rides into Las Vegas for her headline residency debut with the wind of having become one of a handful of country artists to have earned the ACM Triple Crown Award. That means Lambert, who kicks off the first show of Velvet Rodeo this Friday, has won Academy of Country Music Award honors for New Female/Male Artist of the Year, Female/Male Artist of the Year, and Entertainer of the Year. At 38, she joins legends such as Barbara Mandrell, Carrie Underwood, Merle Haggard and Mickey Gilley.
Triple Crown winners Brooks & Dunn performed “Kerosene,” the hit that made her a household country music name, during the Aug. 24 ACM Honors ceremony at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Morgan Wallen, Chris Stapleton and Shania Twain were present as winners of awards in their respective categories, but it was Lambert’s night as she related to the audience her beginnings as a teenager with a voice, a guitar, ambition and stubbornness.
Brooks & Dunn’s cover brought Lambert’s career full circle to her performance of “Kerosene” at the ACM Awards in 2006, for which she performed in front of a wall of fire. There was an empty space in country at the time once filled by Dolly Parton and Wanda Jackson that Lambert easily stepped into with a voice that could be songbird-sweet or raspy for more driven songs such as set opener on her most recent tour, “Actin’ Up.”
The song encapsulates one aspect of Lambert’s musical persona: the hellion just beneath the surface that can’t be tamed and isn’t afraid to make mistakes. That’s the Lambert of “Fastest Girl in Town,” “Gunpowder & Lead,” “Tequila Does,” lead single from her latest album Palomino, “If I Was A Cowboy” and her No. 1 collaboration with Elle King, “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home).” Lambert may be a living legend now, but her fire will burn bright as ever at Velvet Rodeo.
Planet Hollywood Resort, 8 p.m. Sept. 23-24, 28 & 30, starting at $79 plus tax + fee. ticketmaster.com
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