Kacey Musgraves is slated to perform Wednesday night (Jan. 26) at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia as part of her 2022 Star-Crossed: Unveiled Tour, but she gave fans an early surprise. On Monday (Jan. 24), Musgraves made an unannounced appearance at Tavern on Camac — a long-running Philadelphia gay bar — and got comfortable on the stage.
The “Justified” singer treated the bargoers to a cover of the Fleetwood Mac classic “Dreams,” from the group’s 1977 album Rumours. “Like a heartbeat, drives you mad/ In the stillness of remembering what you had/ And what you lost/ Of what you had/ And what you lost,” Musgraves sings before launching into the famous chorus.
The 33-year-old has long been a champion of the LGBTQ+ community, and in 2014, her song “Follow Your Arrow”– with its pointed lyric “Kiss lots of boys/ Or kiss lots of girls if that’s something you’re into”– was named song of the year at the Country Music Association Awards.
In a 2017 letter to the LGBTQ+ community that was published in Billboard, Musgraves recalled her early days in Nashville, when her experiences visiting gay clubs helped influence her outlook and her music.
“I shortly moved to Nashville where I made tons of gay friends and started going to the few gay clubs we have in town. It started to enrage me that I’d had some previous misunderstanding about a group of people that I now love so much and have so much in common with,” she wrote. “As I got deeper into the country community I realized how many still felt the need to hide their identities. Country music has always been a genre built on songs and stories celebrating real life so I took it upon myself to include my own awakening into my music and knew that I would be taking some heat for it.”
The singer continued, “‘Follow Your Arrow’ may have tanked on the country radio chart, but that song specifically has brought so much meaning, happiness, and listeners to my music that may not have been there otherwise. So, to my friends in the LGBTQ community: Thank you. While the career stuff is great, it’s fleeting. You changed me as a human.”
Watch Musgraves sing “Dreams” — with the help of her fans at the bar — below.
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