Miranda Lambert Relies on Her Fans to Determine Which Songs to Sing on Wildcard Tour

If you’ve been to a Miranda Lambert concert, then you may have unknowingly helped her determine which songs she will sing on the road. The 36-year-old is currently on her Wildcard Tour, supporting her latest Wildcard album, and she is looking to her fans to help her decide which songs she should sing each night.

“Usually after the first night of the tour, I tweak the setlist pretty good,” Lambert told AZ Central. “We rehearse with it. But without a crowd there to tell you if it sucks or not, you don’t know, you know what I mean? So I rely on them big time to tell me where we need to go.”

The changing landscape of the music industry, with people downloading songs instead of full albums, for better or worse has also helped influence Lambert in which songs to sing.

“You don’t want to lay a whole record on somebody that’s not heard it. Especially nowadays because people don’t go buy the CD and put it in and live on it for a month like we used to,” Lambert explained. “But there’s also the school of thought of if we don’t play them live, how are they gonna hear them? So I spread them out and, a couple of them are recognizable from streaming and being a single but it’s still just like playing a brand-new song for the crowd. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

One song that will likely become a mainstay in Lambert’s future shows, even past the Wildcard Tour, is “Tequila Does,” from Wildcard.

“Actually Ashley Monroe from Pistol Annies, we’ve been best friends since she was, I don’t know, 18 and I was 20,” Lambert said. “She said to me one night, ‘When you sing ‘Tequlia Does,’ you come absolutely more alive than I’ve ever seen you.’”

The song, which Lambert wrote with Jon Randall and Jack Ingram, reminds her of why she is drawn to country music in the first place.

“It’s a honky-tonk country song,” Lambert reasoned. “It sounds like Texas. And that’s where my heart lives and dies is some dark bar somewhere playing a honky tonk song. So whether I’m on an arena stage or TV or in a dive bar, that’s where my heart lives.”

Lambert, who just celebrated her one-year anniversary to husband Brendan McLoughlin, is joined on the road by Cody Johnson and LANCO. Find dates at MirandaLambert.com.

Photo Credit: Getty / John Shearer