Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:58 am

The POST online.....Ellie Behling / Managing Editor / eb670703@ohiou.edu

Miranda Lambert soaked the stage in kerosene last night when the country-rock singer/songwriter performed at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium.

Though tame at first, Lambert soon let her bleached blond hair fly as she strung her guitar with burning hits such as "Kerosene" and the current single "New Strings," both from her gold album KeroseneChoosing a country singer was a risky pick for Ohio University, but the full crowd, decked in cowboy attire, seemed pleased. Booking the rising in star in May for $20,000 was quite the deal — her next tour, with Dierks Bentley, will cost well into the six digits to book.

The Texas native won third place in the first season of Nashville Star, the country version of American Idol, which sparked a career leading to two Country Music Award nominations and a No. 1 album debut.Lambert is not the type to be runner-up, and she lets the crowd know it with a tough but welcoming charisma.

Though she said she is first and foremost a songwriter, the 22-year-old certainly knows how to throw a good show, immediately inviting the audience in the stiff rows of Memorial Auditorium to come forward and loosen up. Donning a scar on her forehead from a recent deer hunting accident, Lambert literally put her face to the crowd as she sung from the edge of the stage.

Opening the show was Cole Deggs (say it fast to get the joke), a group of country rockers who will release their first album in February.Lambert’s show, which was more than just listening to her album, featured a repertoire of current tracks and new material in addition to a sweet-but-sassy energy.

She kicked off with the song "What About Georgia," which she wrote for fellow Nashville Star contestant Travis Howard. She sang a couple of more subdued but catchy country songs off her album, including the resonating ballad she wrote with her father, "Greyhound Bound for Nowhere."

Lambert also performed a few songs from her new album to be released in the winter, including, of course, a song mentioning shotguns "for all y’all girls who have been hurt."

It’s good to see she hasn’t lost her venom.

In addition to head-banging country, she adds slow yet volatile songs such as "Bring Me Down," which blared out of every country station last summer.

She waited to unleash her first single, "Kerosene," until her encore. Anyone who has ever cheated or been cheated on was summoned to listen to the song with lyrics of "I’m giving up on love cause love’s given up on me."

Her performance was rough but friendly, like her album. The university picked a good performer to bring country to Athens.