Shania Twain, O2 Arena, review: Country-pop pioneer reasserts her ...

At the first of Shania Twain’s two O2 Arena shows, the calls for an encore seemed even more impassioned than you might expect. The fevered crowd – who might have broken some sort of record for most cowboy hats ever seen in the North Greenwich postcode – knew what was coming: after two hours of the 58-year-old’s good-time country-pop, rock and power ballads, the Canadian superstar had left her two indestructible hits for last.

But nobody expected Twain would return to sing her deliciously mocking anthem “That Don’t Impress Me Much” dressed in the exact same all-black outfit she wore in the video to “Man! I Feel Like a Woman”, tonight’s bedlam-inducing closer. Twain tells us the costume has spent the last 25 years in a museum. “I wanted to reunite with it,” she said, twirling the top hat around, smiling as she did all night, “and feel the feeling again”.

It seems like a good time for Twain to reassert her status. Country music is, if not back en vogue, at least in the cultural conversation thanks to controversies over Luke Combs’ Tracy Chapman cover and Oliver Anthony’s viral hit, while Twain’s legacy goes beyond the 40 million sales of 1997’s world-smashing Come on Over album; she set the template for Taylor Swift’s country-to-pop mainstream crossover; younger country-adjacent stars like Kasey Musgraves and Orville Peck call her an influence; Harry Styles is a huge fan. Her fanbase remains loyal; Queen of Me, just her second album since 2002, was her third UK number one album.

Much of the last 20 years has seen Twain dealing with personal issues, including a high-profile divorce and illness that required vocal surgery in 2018. Her voice, raspier than it was, mostly holds up well but was exposed on slower numbers; she struggled through gold standard ballad “You’re Still the One”.

Queen of Me therefore came with a message of empowerment and self-validation, and this tour sees Twain attempting to ride the goodwill. She takes the opportunity, in the first half at least.

She emerged from the middle of the seated crowd via a wheeled box to sing poppy new track “Waking Up Dreaming” gliding along the floor like a cowgirl monarch, singing into people’s phones as they took videos. When she reached the stage, aided by visuals that tell the story of an alien crashlanding in a one-horse town and finding themselves at the local saloon bar (which eventually burns down) – possibly a comment on her position in the music industry – a run of raucous hits injected the night with undeniable fun.

“Up!”, “Any Man of Mine” and “Giddy Up!” were trademark Twain excitable, beer-swilling, thigh-slapping country-rock stompers; the soft rock riff of “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!” sees Twain playfully riding a horse-shaped motorbike; when she calls “Whose Bed Have your Boots Been Under?” a “shitkicker”, it was hard to argue.

It was a shame, then, that the second half lacked the same impetus, padded out with lesser material from Queen of Me and not helped by technical issues that caused a brief pause. Twain brought an uber fan and his mum onstage to chat and sing a cappella, a sweet enough gesture that went on far too long, killing momentum.

But then the encore came: a re-energised Twain strutted through “That Don’t Impress Me Much”, all knowing glances, before the unmistakable guitar lick to “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” struck up. “Let’s go girls,” she screamed; the crowd needed no second invitation.