Seeing and photographing one of my favourite country bands, Maddie & Tae, was truly a major highlight in my life thus far. Driving four hours each way to the Avalon Theater in Niagara Falls and back home in one night was well worth the trip. Filled with so much excitement and listening to all of their music on the drive out there, I truly couldn’t believe it was happening.
Starting their show off with some upbeat dancing music, they played “Free Like,” “Shut Up And Fish,” and “Sad Girl Summer.” Their energy was off the charts, as they basically had an entire cardio workout on the stage. Maddie was dressed in a cute crop top with black leather shorts and short brown sparkly high heels, and Tae was dressed in a black and brown polka-dot mini dress with a black leather fringe jacket and silver sparkly high heels. They were glittering and shining all night.
They played a lot of their new songs from their latest album, Love & Light, as well as their biggest country hits: “Fly,” “Girl In A Country Song,” and “Die From A Broken Heart.”
Covering “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack, Maddie explained how this is the first song she sang that made her realize this is what she wants to do for a living, and ever since then, nothing has gotten in her way to achieve her dreams.
Maddie and Tae began to tell short stories about the two of them becoming best friends at the young age of 15 and how they both had big dreams of becoming big country artists. About 12 years later, they’re now touring on their own and have been doing amazing in the country music industry. Debuting their very first album, Start Here (Deluxe Edition), in 2015. Now, 20 years later with six albums released and 2.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify, they continue to thrive. She also shared that someone told them years ago that all they’d ever be is one hit wonders, and how frustrated that made both of them, so in spite they decided to make a love song out of those words of haters, and turned it into a beautiful song. Everyone deserves a chance, no matter how hard or impossible something may seem to another person.
During their set, they chatted to the audience about how hard it is being away from their babies for this long, but how much of an amazing experience all of this has been in their lives. They also told stories of some songs they wrote about a bully in high school, a bad boyfriend, and how very proud they are about their Love & Light album. When they first started playing shows, they had to play at restaurants because they were much too young to perform in bars at age 15. That has made it a little harder at times, but they have pushed through it. They even had the honor to tour with Carrie Underwood on her “Cry Pretty Tour” back in 2019, and they could not even believe that Underwood chose them for that tour.
They finished their set with their biggest song to date, “Die From A Broken Heart,” which has over 324 million streams on Spotify and is No. 1 on their most popular list. Just as they left the stage, they shortly came running back for an encore song, “Bathroom Floor.” I believe they should’ve been performing on a much bigger stage, with all their arena-like performance aspects. I hope to see them at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto the next time they tour in Ontario.
At the end of the night, Taylor (Tae) went on to say “We do not get to live our dream without every single one of you beautiful people spending your time and money to come here and watch our show”
This was truly an amazing experience, and I’m extremely grateful for everything!
MADDIE & TAE SETLIST:
- Free Like
- Shut Up And Fish
- Sad Girl Summer
- Kissing Cowboys
- Girl In Alabama
- Woman You Got
- Friends Don’t
- Chasing Babies and Raising Dreams
- Fly (acoustic)
- I Hope You Dance (Lee Ann Womack cover)
- One Hit Wonders
- Drunk Girls In Bathrooms
- Sierra
- Your Side Of Town
- Girl In A Country Song
- Fall In Love and Find Out
- Love and Light
- Every Night, Every Morning
- Die From A Broken Heart
ENCORE:
- Bathroom Floor
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Photo Gallery By Courtney Page
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