Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic
Somehow, the word mania still seems wrong to apply to anything about Ella Langley , whose entire appeal is predicated on a kind of laid-back country modesty. But by any commercial standard, if the term fits, wear it.
As you know — unless you’re one of those people who likes to brag on socials about being unaware of the hottest things going, in which case: please stop being irritating — “Choosin’ Texas” has shattered records for the longest-running No. 1 single in Billboard Hot 100 history. Her “Dandelion” album is a phenomenon in its own right, as the second-biggest album of 2026 to date. But that still left her power as a touring draw somewhat untested, since she’s done more dates opening for other country powerhouse’s stadium shows than going out as a headliner. Will she still count as the Ellaphant in the room (sorry) when the focus shifts from Billboard’s primary domain to Pollstar’s? Related Stories How AI Is Used by Netflix at Its VFX Eyeline Studios, Revealed by VP Mohsen Mousavi at View Conference Netflix Lays Off 6% of Employees, Eliminating About 1,000 Jobs in Biggest Cutbacks to Date
You could ask the country fans who tried and, not being oil-rich, failed to get tickets to her two Greek Theatre shows in L.A. this week. They both sold out immediately in a feeding frenzy months ago, at reasonable prices, leaving everyone left out to plum the resale market, where it suddenly became evident that Langley was Los Angeles’ toughest ticket of the year, price-wise. Immediately after the initial sellouts and right on up to showtime, the get-in-the-door price for the benches in the back of the Greek hovered in the $800-1,000 range. Tickets that were a little more out of the Griffith Park woods stayed constantly in four figures. As I rode the shuttle bus to the Greek with a family of four who’d come down from Bakersfield, I found myself hoping they’d gotten their tickets on the initial sale and hadn’t home-equitied their house just to hear “Be Her.” Popular on Variety
But if there was any panic involved in getting ticketed, you wouldn’t have sensed that inside the amphitheater. But for the size of the set, this was a show that could almost as easily have gone down at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace as at the Greek. Exactly two hours of solid Nashville songcraft, well-performed… in a vein where actual, definable country sounds predominate, but with just enough pop tinge to go down easy with the west coast palate… What is wrong with this picture? Not a thing. And the fact that Langley seems easygoing and laid-back almost in reverse proportion to the stir around her is part of the appeal. Even when she’s singing about love gone wrong, her music offers a sense that all is right with the world… and that not every young performer needs to be working so furiously to win us over, when a skilled winsomeness can be enough.
For an older audience, there’s a little bit of nostalgic implicit just in Langley’s look, which is kind of a cross between Linda Ronstadt in her early ’70s country era and Jessi Colter. Fortunately, we now live in an era that is more accepting of accents in female singing voices, and so Langley’s Alabama twang is following quickly in the tradition of Lainey Wilson’s Louisiana chops as something that feels pleasantly exotic, if anything, to a California audience, and the farthest thing from a turn-off. On the current Grammy ballot, she submitted “Be Her” (her second-biggest hit off “Dandelion”) in a pop category instead of in her native genre. But hearing her voice on it, or on anything, you couldn’t mistake it for not being a country song.
What was it Tim McGraw used to say his manager told him — “Son, you couldn’t go pop with an ass full of firecrackers”? That once would have applied to Langley, too, except “Choosin’ Texas” has become so huge it does count as a massive old pop hit, wherever else it initially triumphed. She’s not bringing herself to the mainstream to pull that off so much as the world is delivering itself to Alabama’s doorstep. It’s a pretty sweet deal, if you happen to like that kind of sweet regional dialect.
At the Greek, she prefaced her set with two short recordings that were played over the PA after the lights went down and before she came on stage: “Hell at Night,” her collaboration with the rapper BigXthaPlug, and “Froggy Went A-Courtin’,” the traditional folk song that opens and closes her latest album. It was a canny way to say, even before stepping on stage, that Langley is well-rooted and also intends to be part of the here and now.
But the biggest statement she has to make is just asserting her own strong song sense, which she did immediately by starting the set proper with the title track from “Dandelion.” It’s a characteristically mid-tempo charmer that had the fringe-laden, boots-bearing singer standing in front of a widescreen depiction of wildflowers and singing: “Ain’t a pink bouquet in the flower store / I’m okay if I’m a little more dandelion / Born to live free, ridin’ on a breeze / On a summer night, tucked back in the weeds, guess that’s just me.” The night’s path, and maybe her career’s, was set out right there: She’s gonna be about gentle breezes and humility, not chutzpah and sweat equity.
Many of the 22 songs that populated the set weren’t more than one two-step removed from the honky-tonk; titles like “Bottom of Your Boots” and “Last Call for Us” seem aimed at the jukeboxes that are harder to find nowadays, though they suited the Greek just fine, too. Langley doesn’t have a lot of absolute barnburners in her catalog, which is probably why she introduced one of the few covers of the night, Gretchen Wilson’s “Here for the Party,” 10 songs in, to give everyone a caffeine jolt right before the acoustic stretch of the show. It was the one moment of the night where you sensed her stretching to cover a base. “I may not be a 10 but the boys say I clean up good” doesn’t have the same ring to it when it’s being sung by someone so much of the world considers a 10, and although Langley described herself as a redneck at another point in the evening, Party Girl isn’t the primary part of her persona. On the other hand, it could never, ever be wrong to cover “Here for the Party,” no matter who’s doing it, so there’s that.
Langley hadn’t done a lot of talking in the show’s first half, and that, combined with the rock-star poses being struck by the guitarists (who seemed to use the small thrust ramp more than she did), did create an initial curiosity about whether she’d stay shy and rocking or open up a bit more as the show went on. She took care of that during the seated/acoustic part of the show that arrived about halfway in, which provided a big share of the night’s highlights. She brought out both her opening acts for duets — Laci Kaye Booth for a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” they’d worked up when they were at a songwriting conference together, and Kameron Marlowe for a killer rendition of “Strangers,” the barroom-ready breakup anthem they did together on his album. For “Butterfly Season,” she brought up on stage a girl holding a sign declaring it was her first concert, though the little missy turned out to be such a belter she almost seemed like a ringer. A completely solo “Speaking Terms” was a peak moment of the performance, as it is the latest album, bringing some godliness into the show but also a world of woe and doubt. (She entered this song in a Christian division for the Grammys, but it could almost contend for best agnostic song, if there were such a category.)
“Somethin’ Simple” was preceded by the longest speech of the night, one in which she talked about being from “a small town south of Montgomery, Alabama — really, really small. Just this cattle town. Didn’t grow up with a lot of money or nothing, just a big dream in this little heart.” And then she went into a perhaps inevitable ramble about how, even though she’s living her dream now, her next dream is to be just like her audience,back in a small town “thinking about the sun going down on the back porch, in a big T-shirt on with no makeup; somebody real sexy cooking you something delicious on the grill… My daydream has kind of shifted just a little bit, you know? Don’t be fooled, I’ll still be doing this the rest of my life, but I’m starting to think about somebody to share it with; maybe have some kids one day. Who knows? I’m only 27.” Yes, but 27-going-on-Reba.
Back in band mode, her real breakout smash, “You Look Like You Love Me,” weathered fine without the Riley Green duet touch, sung by Langley perched on a piano, showing off the gams and ensuring we got a sense of some cockiness to go along with the modesty. “Choosin’ Texas” was slotted in as the penultimate number of the main set, passing by so little sense of occasion — sans any typical country “Thank you for changing my life with this song” preamble — that you almost could’ve mistaken it for another fine album track and not a fluke all-time history maker.
For her first encore number, Langley did a terrific version of the seminal Toby Keith oldie “Wish I Didn’t Know Now” (a hit that doesn’t seem so very old, but predates Langley’s birth by about six years), then ended on a much louder note with “That’s Why We Fight.” You can understand why she wants to go out as explosively as possible, even if it’s one of her sillier numbers (in the storied tradition of songs about emotional turmoil leading to great sex). Perhaps on a future tour she’ll have the confidence to end with leave the audience with one of her more reflective and personal songs, even if a little role-playing never hurt anyone. Music fans are coming to cherish her because she’s a lover, not a fighter… and watching her temperate personality flower in the hothouse of pop superstardom has been one of the unexpected pleasures of 2026.
Setlist for Ella Langley at the Greek in Los Angeles, Oct. 13-14, 2026:
Dandelion I Gotta Quit Bottom of Your Boots I Can’t Love You Anymore Paint the Town Blue Girl You’re Taking Home 20-20 You & Me Time Broken Here for the Party Last Call for Us Somethin’ Simple Butterfly Season Dreams (with Strangers (with Kameron Marlowe) Speaking Terms Be Her You Look Like You Love Me Loving Life Again Choosin’ Texas Weren’t for the Wind
Encore: Wish I Didn’t Know Now That’s Why We Fight
Source: Entertainment