The Band Perry combines rock, country at Cape concert

Landing in Cape Girardeau on its first national tour as a headliner, The Band Perry mixed exuberance with showmanship to meet high expectations of a nearly full house at the Show Me Center on Friday night.

Fronting the seven-piece group with her brothers Neil and Reid of Greenville, Tenn., curly blonde-haired Kimberly Perry's every expression was conveyed to the crowd on three big video screens behind the stage.

The rock 'n' roll-influenced band opened at 9:15 p.m. with its song, "Done," as the screens flashed "TBP" in bright gold letters.

Following with "Don't Let Me Be Lonely," "Hip to My Heart" and "You Lie" under the silhouettes of crows and black trees on a red sky on the screens, Kimberly bounced from side to side of the stage, commanding, "Gimme the lights!" to show sections of the audience.

"We are right smack in the middle of our first headlining tour ever, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts," said Kimberly, 30. "For us, it's one part therapy and two parts recess."

She said the pace of the band's career has been frightening at times, but it coped with it "by putting one foot in front of the other."

Preceded by bluesy singer-guitarist Lindsay Ell of Calgary, Alberta, and country singer Easton Corbin, the Perrys also performed "I Am a Keeper" and "I Just Want to be the Only Girl." There was a patriotic interlude when the fans stood with their hands over their hearts while Kimberly put up an American flag and the fiddler played the national anthem.

The band won Grammys in 2010 for Top New Vocal Group and Best New Artist.

Corbin, a 31-year-old Florida native, applied his baritone voice to the No. 1 hits "A Little More Country than That" and "Roll with It" while doing signature tunes by Alabama, George Strait and Brooks & Dunn. Corbin was the Country Music Association's 2010 "Breakthrough Artist of the Year."

As a Cape Girardeau woman indicated Friday night, while The Band Perry's rock influences might not attract traditional country music aficionados, its lyrics -- dealing with the gritty aspects of life in the heartland -- may show more traditional influences than those of countrier-sounding Nashville contemporaries.

Claire Blankenship, accompanied by Russell Milbourn of Cape Girardeau, said the The Band Perry's songs "are just more real than most of the things I have heard."

"There is so much emotion in them," Blankenship said. "It doesn't seem like someone else wrote a love song for them and they just sang it."

Blankenship said she likes Corbin's music "because what I'm hearing now is like what I hear on the radio."

Attending with 7-year-old sister Skylee and father Christopher, 16-year-old Christina Carl of Poplar Bluff, Mo., said the Perrys "have really outgoing music and are a great band to listen to," although her dad, a trucker, prefers Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and Bill Monroe.

Christina Gaines, 15, of Sikeston, Mo., has been a fan since seeing The Band Perry and Corbin at a rodeo in her hometown.

"I love The Band Perry," said Christina, whose mother Cindy also is a fan. "They mix a country sound and a rock sound."