Photo: Ismael Quintanillall for iHeartRadio
Elle King delivered an epic debut performance at the 2023 iHeartCountry Festival presented by Capital One on Saturday night (May 13). King, deemed a “powerhouse rocker,” has fully embraced her journey to country music after releasing bodies of work in other genres, thanks to the evening that she and Dierks Bentley had whiskey together backstage at a show.
“It's not even about the drink,” King explained in a recent conversation with iHeartCountry. “You never forget how someone makes you feel, you know? And I am a very sensitive being, and I never forgot how people made me feel that day. I just wanted to stay in that forever, and that's what country music felt like for me. I love bringing the fans (at my shows to it). I love showing them some of my older stuff, and I love bringing the older fans in and showing them what country is to me and how cool it is.”
King released her first-ever country album Come Get Your Wife, earlier this year. The 13-track project is packed with fan-favorite anthems like “Try Jesus,” “Tulsa,” “Lucky,” “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)” with Miranda Lambert, and “Worth A Shot” with Bentley — the pair’s first duet since releasing “Different For Girls” in 2016 — and others.
The Come Get Your Wife star, decked in the perfect pink fringe for an iHeartCountry debut, nodded to her earlier eras with renditions of some of her earliest smash-hits. King kicked off her set with “Ex’s & Oh’s,” from her 2015 album, Love Stuff. She paid tribute to that chapter of her career with a fresh new spin, performing “America’s Sweetheart” with a country flare. King closed it out with the high-energy anthem, “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home).”
“It's been just really beautiful, and it's totally reaffirming what drew me to country and why I love it so much,” King recently told iHeartCountry of her live performances, adding with a laugh: “And it's really because the fans are bada** and the most fun.”
Photo: Rachel Kaplan for iHeartRadio