After the lightning at State Fair, Miranda Lambert starts slow, then warms up

Not a pandemic, rain or lighting could stop country star Miranda Lambert from kicking off the Minnesota State Fair grandstand series on Thursday night.

Well, rain, and more specifically, lightning, delayed Lambert's concert by more than two hours and scotched all other nighttime performances at the fairgrounds. There was no time for opening act Lindsay Ell, but after 10,876 fans had been sitting out the storms safely inside the grandstand (and drinking plenty of beer), Lambert finally took the stage at 9:45 p.m.

And before she sang a note, she slipped, which may have affected her mood instantly.

Because, to paraphrase her recent hit "It All Comes Out in the Wash," she put that sucker on autopilot. Lambert just seemed to cruise through her set list. She smiled and gestured with her hands and arms, but she didn't unleash her personality.

At least for a while.

Lambert, 37, is the most important and impressive female recording artist in country music in the past 15 years or so (sorry, Carrie Underwood fans) — the perfect mix of attitude and emotion.

She has enough awards to fill two or three trophy cases. From the Academy of Country Music (ACM), she's collected five album of the year and nine top female vocalist prizes, among others. From the Country Music Association (CMA), she's landed hardware for album of the year twice and best female vocalist six times.

What Lambert hasn't won is entertainer of the year. Not from any of the prize-giving country acronyms.

Her performance in October 2019 at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul was by far the most entertaining show she's given as a regular visitor to the Twin Cities. But on that Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars Tour, she was buoyed by her buddies Elle King, Ashley McBryde and the Pistol Annies, which enabled her to let her hair down and allow her personality to emerge.

Lambert started loosening up Thursday when the rain began again about 40 minutes into her 75-minute set. She was delivering "The House That Built Me," her career-defining ballad about how her parents raised her, and her house — and hair — were feeling the rain. Undaunted, she hit all her high and low notes, sounding as heartfelt as she ever has. She possesses Nashville's best twangy voice since Dolly Parton's.

Drawing material from throughout her career, Lambert gained some momentum with the new "Tequila Does," insisting that Patron loves her more than beer-drinking cowboys, and then kicked things up a notch with a cover of the Chicks' fiery kiss-off "Goodbye Earl," which turned into a festive romp with Ell and backup singer Gwen Sebastian front and center with Lambert.

The ensuing "Gunpowder and Lead" ignited the usually unanimated but glitzy star. She even twirled a bit during "Mama's Broken Heart" and eventually kicked off her fringe-covered lavender suede boots and just accepted the rain, the grandstand and everything.